Hi Attorney! I'm only 26 years old and I have an Estafa case filed against me when I was only 23 (Just a year out of college). I was working for a brokerage company under sales and my job is to meet my quotas by encouraging people to use our trading platform and invest. I used to train people on how to trade foreign currencies. Our company's advocacy was merely to teach people how to trade and manage their personal funds but we never trade/manage for any of our clients as it wasn't allowed in our company. One day a man at his late 40's walked in our company and he was looking for me. He said he knew my family somehow and said he's interested to invest but doesn't have the time to manage his funds and suggested maybe one of us (Staffs) could trade for him. We declined as per policy but he insisted we'd find him clients who are good at trading through our database and connect them instead. I was still new in the company that time (Almost 1 month old) and wasn't fully familiar with the system so me and my sales partner contacted our main office in Manila and told them about this client. They suggested to whom we could connect this man and gave us contact details of another client in the company who had good trading records. I gave him the contact number but he insisted that I should be there in their meeting and reasoned that I understand the platform better. At present, I honestly feel very naive for agreeing to his requests. Me and my sales partner joined them and both our company's clients agreed to engage into a "guaranteed investment" contract. They wanted me and my sales partner to sign as witnesses. We agreed as we thought there was no harm to witness for both their agreements. Me and my sales partner were then just 23 and 22 years old. Client A opened an account with our company under his name and under his account but he gave the trading password/access to our Client B so Client B can trade currencies using his account. (Note: Client B cannot steal/run away with Client A's money because our company only allowed withdrawal/fund transfers to bank accounts with a similar name registered in the company and bank (Also as stated in their passports/valid IDs). They agreed profits of 10%. Unfortunately, Client B did not meet the targets and mismanaged Client A's funds. He loss more than half a million pesos. When Client A asked Client B to pay him back, Client B declined and said she didn't have the ability to pay him back. Client A demanded from me and my sales partner to convince Client B to pay because we're witnesses and we should urge them to meet their agreements. Client B insisted he didn't have money and so Client A filed an Estafa case against them and included me, my sales partner, and even the President of our company (Who never even met Client A before), saying we should be responsible also in paying up for his failed investment. Client A claims that if it weren't for the company, he wouldn't have met Client B. It was stated in their contract that the agreement is external from the company and both clients only chose the company's platform. He loss half a million pesos but he's demanding us to pay him around Php1.5million. He also made up stories like we were the once who kept going after him to put money in the company, that we were part of this malicious scheme and that we were earning from this "Scam". Truth is Attorney, whatever was written in their contract was verbalize by them. Me and my sales partner were just witnessing their agreement. The contract was not ours but he made a false testimony saying that Client B was "our traders" or traders of our company when in fact they were both equally just clients who agreed outside the company to engage into a contract. It was just this month when the case progressed since 2014 and the unfortunate thing is I'm working abroad. I don't know what happened but it progressed in court and they said our bail is around Php90,000 per head. I'm only 26 years old, Attorney, and I was only an employee... I'm planning to go home this October to borrow money and post bail because truth is I don't have that money yet but I'm worried if I will be allowed to leave the country again. I still have a 2 year contract in middle east but I am willing to find a way and come home when there's a hearing. If I post bail, can I fly back immediately for my work? Also, please enlighten me how this false stories were honored in court. What will happen to my NBI clearance?? I'm worried because I can lose my job here in middle just because of this...
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