Scammers now more notorious

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Scammers on social media such as Facebook and even on cell phone text messages have become notorious with various means and ways to dupe unsuspecting victims.

From using Christian phrases and God’s name to offering employment jobs abroad or to simply give out various amounts of money and vehicles to lure their victims to respond and accept the scammers’ request to add them as friends so they can hijack or take over the Facebook accounts.

Because many Filipinos are easy to scam, the malpractices are spreading like bushfire on Facebook and Meta Platforms, Inc. which owns Facebook cannot do anything to stop it.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) also warned the public against text scammers, saying defrauders have “re-programmed” their approach to sending messages to capture personal information online.

“So, dumami na naman iyong mga text scams, and – but most of them now have redirected … or re-program their approach, panloloko nila asking people ‘nag register na ba kayo ng SIM card ninyo kung hindi pa click this link and you go to their site, which is a fake site’,” DICT Secretary Ivan Uy said.

Uy said text scammers would be able to capture subscribers’ data if they key in their information on the provided fake link. “They also have exploited that in would respect to e-wallets, na for purportedly you will receive a text coming from e-wallet provider na ‘o kung nag-reregister na kayo ng SIM card kailangang mag re-register kayo sa e-wallet ninyo in order to be able to activate it’,” he added.

Uy said subscribers could fall prey to scammers once a SIM card is registered since there is no need for the user to have it registered for their e-wallet accounts or similar accounts. “Do not fall for those scams,” Uy stressed as he urged subscribers to register their SIM cards to put an end to the avenue of defrauding people through text messages.

DICT’s record showed there are more than five million subscribers who have already registered their SIM cards as of May, according to Uy, who said the DICT extended the SIM card registration until July 26. (Mindanao Examiner)