MANILA, Philippines – Shopping scam rate in the country reached 35.9 percent, the highest among 11 Asian economies in the 2023 Asia scam report, Cybercrime Investigation and Cooperating Center (CICC) said.
The 2021 Asia Scam Report, unveiled during the inaugural Anti-Scam Asia Summit in Taipei, was jointly issued by GASA and Gogolook. The report drew insights from a survey conducted with almost 20,000 participants covering 11 Asian economies, which includes China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Shopping scam is one of the nine (9) mainstream fraud and scenarios used by scammers, other scams included identity theft, investment scam, government/bank scam, job scam, lottery scam, family/relatives scam, bill payment scam and charity scam.
CICC Executive Director Alexander Ramos urged the public to be careful when they do their online shopping, especially during this christmas season.
“Based on our observation, shopping scams usually increase during the Christmas season,” CICC Executive Director Alexander Ramos said.
“Scammers take advantage of the high volume of online shopping and people’s vulnerability during this period,” he added.
Based on the Asia Scam Report, 24.8 percent of Filipino victims responded too quickly to scammers’ demands and 21.1 percent chose to take a risk.
The mindset and immediate response of Filipinos when confronted with scams make them vulnerable to fall into traps and can be victimized by scammers, according to Ramos.
“Some people easily believe false promises even if they are too good to be true,” Ramos said.
Some reasons for vulnerability include being attracted to money and over trusting friends and family members, whom they thought they can surely trust with.
The Cybercrime Investigation and Cooperating Center (CICC) appeals to the public to call 1326 if they are victims of shopping scam and other cybercrime activities.
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