Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan John Uy warned that the recent extension of the SIM card registration deadline to July 26 could provide a “last chance” for scammers to register numbers and devise new methods to defraud consumers.
During a media briefing on Tuesday in Malacañang, Uy expressed regret over how scammers have taken advantage of the extended registration period to come up with new ways to deceive the public.
“Once inextend natin ito the scammers will use, take that opportunity to continue and to hasten their scamming methods using their respective cellphone dahil kung baga last chance na nila to be able to do that,“ he said.
He revealed that scammers are now using new tactics, such as asking unregistered users to click on a link to register their SIM cards and directing them to register their e-wallets separately.
However, once consumers clicked on these “fake” sites, the scammers would be able to obtain their personal information.
Uy emphasized that consumers should be cautious and not fall prey to these types of scams.
“Once you register, your SIM card everything is still the same and you’re still registered to your e-wallets. We are hoping that our kababayans would register quickly and so that we can cut this method, this avenue of defrauding our kababayans by using the SIM card,” he added.
As of May 10, there have been 95 million registered SIM cards.
Uy expects the total SIM registration to reach around 100 million, with the remaining 50 million being disposable SIM cards used for various purposes such as telemarketing and scamming.
With a total of 168,016,400 active SIM cards in the country, Uy hopes that the July 26 deadline will be enough to put an end to these text scams.
