High cost of online scams
During a recent conference, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Bernadette Romulo-Puyat shared how one of her friends got scammed with a substantial amount of money that she had been counting on for her retirement.
One can only imagine the anguish from seeing savings painstakingly built over many years vanish in an instant.
Unfortunately, it is a harrowing experience that is shared by a worrying number of unsuspecting Filipinos who have fallen prey to increasingly sophisticated scammers determined to earn a quick buck.
According to the 2026 State of Scams report of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (Gasa), a high of 84 percent–or four of five–of 1,160 surveyed Filipino adults encountered a scam over the past year, rising from 77 percent the previous year.
Among the most common identified by the BSP are investment scams where people are invited to put in money on the promise of returns that are well above market rates, shopping, and love scams that steal hearts of targets first and then their money next.
Money lost to scams was pegged at P121.8 billion in the past year or an average loss of P10,427 per victim, according to Gasa, an international organization that brings together public and private sector stakeholders to better understand, prevent, and respond to scams.
Disturbing findings
Mel Migriño, Philippine country head and general manager of Gogolook, one of the collaborators of Gasa, said that over the past year, a wide range of scams “have proliferated massively, taking a heavy toll on personal and business security.”
Indeed, the report said that because of fraud, some 22 percent of victims over the past 12 months said they could no longer afford essential expenses, not to mention the toll on their mental health.
Scams likewise pose “a major threat” to the country’s economic stability and integrity of the financial system as concerns over safety might erode confidence in the increasingly digital system, with two of every three retail payments now done online.
These disturbing findings are proof that scams remain a painful scourge in the Philippines with perpetrators constantly changing their methods to escape detection, like breaking up into smaller, pervasive operations across rural areas in response to the crackdowns on major scam hubs in the country.
With Filipinos conducting more of their daily transactions online, then it should follow that efforts to protect Filipinos from scams should be stepped up, especially as initiatives by those whose platforms and websites have become conduits of fraud have been found inadequate.
No formal warnings
According to the Gasa report, Filipinos have placed “substantial responsibility” for preventing scams on the government and online platforms through which these fraudulent transactions are coursed, yet these same organizations have been perceived as “underperforming.”
Seven of every 10 victims indeed lamented that they realized they had been scammed on their own, receiving little to no formal warnings from banks, telecommunications providers, anti-scam services, or public authorities, suggesting that many scams are identified only after the significant harm has already been done.
Removing this scourge will require a “layered defense,” pointed out Helena Forest, executive vice president of Mastercard, such as by putting protections across the ecosystem, from before a payment is made, to spotting suspicious activity in real time and then improving recovery when money is lost.
The government took a major step forward in setting up the enabling framework with the passage in 2024 of the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act, which punishes crimes such as acting as money mules to carry out scams, economic sabotage as well as performing social engineering schemes designed to manipulate victims into revealing sensitive information that can be used to execute fraudulent transactions.
A collective response
Banks, telecommunications companies, payment providers, and platforms have also developed their own programs against fraud that could undermine confidence in their operations.
The challenge is to harness and streamline all of these efforts to better achieve the common objective of fostering further growth of the digital lifestyle espoused by Filipinos and protecting them at the same time against scams, described as one of the “defining challenges” of the digital age.
Overcoming this challenge will require a collective response that is stronger, more efficient, and encompassing the entire chain, and shifting modes from reactive when scams have already been done to proactive, with capabilities shared among platforms, financial institutions, and government institutions to disrupt scams before they claim victims.
That said, consumers themselves should do their part to protect themselves by being alert and critical, getting the right information, and heeding the warning that has been repeated far too often but unfortunately still ignored: if it is too good to be true, it most certainly is.
