THE National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is supporting a congressman’s campaign against text scams.
Telecommunications Commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba lauded the hard stance against fraudulent text messages, which threaten the security and safety of the public, of Liberal Party Rep. Romero S. Quimbo of Marikina City.
Recently, Quimbo requested the NTC to help him stop the dissemination of a text message fraudulently using his name and the Tzu Chi Foundation. The text scam advises the recipient that he allegedly won a cash prize in a raffle.
Quimbo also urged the NTC to come up with tougher policies, stronger regulatory environment and wider information campaign on text scams.
“We looked into the request of Congressman Quimbo, and we agree that these scams potentially harm the receiver. These text scams do not only deceive, they also damage the name of publicly known figures and organizations when the message particularly indicates a personality to lend credibility to its claim,” Cordoba said.
In 2016 the NTC received 433 complaints on text scams. This figure does not include the unreported cases of this scheme, since the victims are often unaware of the recourse available to them.
“We have around 110 million prepaid subscribers alone. As these fraudulent acts persist, more people will possibly be victimized, hence we need to identify the perpetrators of these scams. We encourage the public to be vigilant and to report the text scams to the NTC so we can take proper action,” Cordoba said.