NTC says criminals ‘updating ways’ to scam people, gets over 45,000 complaints

Text scam sample with logo of the National Telecommunications Commission. INQUIRER FILES

MANILA, Philippines — Despite the mandatory subscriber identity module (SIM) registration law, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has recorded over 45,000 scam complaints.

NTC Commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez revealed this Tuesday, as the Senate committee on public services opened its probe into the continued proliferation of text scams despite the implementation of the SIM Registration Act.

“As of date, we have received a total of 45, 697  complaints related to scams,” Lopez told the committee headed by Senator Grace Poe.

The complaints, Lopez said, include receiving scam messages while others reported that they have already provided money to scammers.

“But most of the complaints received was that they just want these numbers to be blocked because they received all the scams you mentioned a while ago,” the NTC official said.

While the law allows using 17 types of identification cards (IDs) to register a SIM, she said some are using fake IDs.

READ: DICT warns public vs new approach of text scammers

To address this problem,  Lopez said stakeholders are now looking at a post-registration validation mechanism.

“In sum po, the NTC believes that the SIM registration is a good law. It actually eliminated an easy way for  people to scam or defraud people,” she said.

“But as the government is trying to protect its consumers, the criminals  are also updating their ways and means to commit a crime,” she pointed out.

READ: Senator JV Ejercito’s complaint: ‘My son got scammed’ even after SIM registration

The NTC official then stressed the importance of having  “constant and close coordination” among government agencies to combat the spread of text scams.

As of September 3, the NTC said 118 469 million have registered their SIMs.

Lopez, however, acknowledged that at the early stage of SIM registration, the NTC noticed a decline in the office’s complaints.

“However, in the ensuing months, we again noticed a sharp increase of the reported scams,” she said.

The mandatory SIM registration ended on July 30.

kga/abc