A senator has called
on the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to persuade
telecommunication companies (telcos) to do their part in protecting the public
from text scams.
In a Senate hearing on text scams on Wednesday, September 2,
Senator Cynthia Villar asked the NTC to urge telcos to participate in the
information drive againsttext scammers as part of their corporate social
responsibility (CSR).
“If you don’t have the budget, I suggest you ask the telcos to
partner with you in coming up with TV ads exposing the modus operandi of text
scammers. I am sure the information drive against text scams will be a
worthwhile corporate social responsibility project,” Villar told the NTC at the
hearing.
According to the senator, radio and television advertisements
should complement posters and newspaper ads to expand their reach.
Villar presided over the hearing of the committee on
public services subcomittee "E" on the proposed Senate Resolution No
974 on the proliferation of text scams and the measures the government and
telcos should do to stop them.
According to Villar, she has been a victim of text scammers
pretending to represent the Villar Foundation, the non-stock, non-profit
organization where she is the managing director. (READ: BSP warns the public versus text
scams)
“Almost every day for the last two years, I would get complaints
from people saying they received a text and they won a prize from the Villar
Foundation [Inc]. We have to go to extra lengths explaining to them that the
text was a hoax and that we are not raffling off house and [lots] and money,”
Villar said. (READ: Globe blocks nearly 1000 text
spammers, scammers)
Villar recalled meeting a janitor at the Ninoy Aquino
International Airport who was tricked into paying P5,000 worth of fees for
supposedly arranging his "winnings" from the Villar Foundation.
“What is deplorable about text scammers is that they give people
false hope while extracting from them their hard-earned money,” she said.
Law against scammers
At Wednesday’s hearing, Villar slammed the NTC for its failure
to protect mobile phone subscribers from text scams.
NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba admitted that the NTC is unable
to push for the mandatory SIM card registration after telcos succeeded in
getting a temporary restraining order against the implementation of NTC
Memorandum Circular No 13-6-2000.
The memorandum circular orders the regulation of the sale and
use of prepaid call cards and changing the unit of billing for cellular phone
operations.
Villar said she will file a bill seeking to impose the mandatory
registration of prepaid SIM cards. The House version already passed third and
final reading.
Meanwhile, National Bureau of Investigation Cybercrime Division
chief Ronaldo Aguto told Villar during the hearing that his division is working
with the NBI’s Anti-Fraud and Technical Intelligence Divisions to pursue text
scammers.
According to Aguto, the NBI was able to file 28 text scam cases
in 2012, 7 in 2013, 10 in 2014, and 8 as of mid-2015.
He said that text scammers are “ordinary persons” who know social
media engineering and are usually not part of big-time international groups.
Aguto said these text scammers were able to convert the load
credits into cash through the telcos’ money transfer facilities.
– Rappler.com
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