Continuing scams

By mid-December, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas expects to wrap up its probe into a recent spate of unauthorized deductions from GCash accounts.

- ANA MARIE PAMINTUAN

GCash recently said it had fixed the problem, but the BSP is hoping to identify systemic vulnerabilities so that reforms can be implemented.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology is also looking into the issue. Senators are eyeing their own probe on the latest problems involving e-wallet platforms.

Despite the multiple probes, people aren't expecting the problems to dramatically disappear. The country's capability to fight cyberscams is abysmal. Republic Act 11934, the SIM Registration Act of 2022 - the first law signed by Bongbong Marcos as president - needs fine-tuning in its implementation, plus complementary moves by multiple agencies along with additional legislation.

Raids conducted on Philippine offshore gaming operators have shown thousands of burner phones used for a wide range of cyberscams. Where did the POGOs get the phones equipped with pre-paid SIM cards?

Seeing the foreigners rounded up during the raids on the POGOs, I wondered if one of them might have been the foreigner who spoke English with a heavy South Asian accent who, together with another person, scammed me last year using GCash.