PH shopping scam rate is highest in 11 Asian countries –report

As the holiday season nears, the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) warned the public to be ‘extra careful’ in shopping online.

In an advisory, CICC cited the recent 2023 Asia Scam Report, stating that the country reached 35.9 percent in shopping scam rate—the highest among 11 Asian countries surveyed.

“Scammers take advantage of the high volume of online shopping and people’s vulnerability during this period,” CICC Executive Director Alexander Ramos explained.

According to him, that mindset and with Filipinos tendency to respond immediately when confronted lead them vulnerable to online scams.

“Some people easily believe on false promises even if they are too good to be true,” Ramos added.

The 2023 Asia Scam Report further presented that 24.8% of Filipino victims respond too quickly on scammers’ demands—which is only one of the main reasons for falling victim to scams.

Other reasons include:

• ‘Choosing to take a risk despite uncertainty about the risk’ which accounted for 21.1% of Filipino victims
• ‘Being enticed by offered incentives’ (20.5%)
• ‘Over-trusting friends and family members’ (13.6%)
• ‘Lack of sufficient knowledge to identify scams’ (8.5%)
• And ‘failure to recognize scams’ (4.2%)

The said report came from the first Anti-Scam Asia Summit held in Taipei, Taiwan.

The Global Anti Scam Alliance (GASA) along with Gogolook published 13 the report based on 20,000 respondents across 11 Asian countries: Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, China and Indonesia.

CICC advised the public to call 1326 if they fall victims of shopping scams and other cybercrimes.