Scammed stupid

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

You know how it is when you read about some obvious scam and you’d chuckle and say to yourself, “I will never fall for that!” 

When I hear victims say how as if they were manipulated and hypnotized (Tagalog: “budol”), I’d roll my eyes and gloat, “You didn’t see that coming?” 

Arrogance, yes. Always that reasoning, “I’m too smart and savvy to be fooled that way.”

Last night I fell victim to what I could only describe as an unsophisticated, rather basic GCash scam there is. Something many people will not even fall for.

To those reading this and is not familiar with GCash, it is a phone app/e-wallet that allows you to pay your bills, purchase goods and services and send or receive money. At the beginning of the year, I was approved for GCredit—a revolving mobile credit line with a PhP10,000 limit which I often use for groceries and online purchases.

Yesterday afternoon, I did a bank transfer of 800 pesos from GCash to my bank account on file. Usually, the transfer will only take a minute, but yesterday I received a text saying that there will be a delay with my transfer and that I should wait within 3-5 days for it to show on my bank account.

I took it to Twitter and asked @GCashOfficial why it would take that long for a bank transfer of a fully-verified account. Within a minute, I received a DM purporting to be from a GCash representative offering their assistance. 

The first of my many mistakes was I didn’t check the name of the account because the display picture is the same as @GCashOfficial. I didn’t see it’s a newly-registered account @GCashmonayan and not even Twitter-verified. If I have stopped and realized this early on, I would have not been scammed.    

Whoever it was, I was told that there was indeed a delay in the transfer but this is something that can be canceled. Since I won’t be needing the money anyway, I said to go ahead and just cancel the transfer and put the 800 pesos back into my GCash account.

To cut the long story short and save me the embarrassment of going into the details, I gave my personal information down to the codes being sent to my phone. Within minutes, I received a notification that more than 4,000 pesos were deducted from my GCredit to pay for Shopee.  

The fraudster even had the nerve to ask if I have friends or family who had BPI or Unionbank accounts because he said that the BPI linked to my account appears to be invalid. When I refused, I was asked if I have friends and family who have GCash account. At this point, I told him off. 

He responded mockingly and blocked me on Twitter:

When I tried accessing my GCash, obviously my MPIN has already been changed. I managed to reset my MPIN and found that I have PhP0.29 left on my GCash and PhP324.71 on my GCredit account. Approximately, almost a total of PhP8,000 has been stolen from my account.

I just broke down. 

There is no denying it. It’s all my fault. I have been mentally kicking myself when I think of how it transpired. How did I fall for such a scam by giving the fraudster my personal details (for verification) and more so, give the OTPs and the authentication codes via chat? How stupid can I get?

I guess I have been negligent because the text messages and OTPs I’ve been receiving came from GCash and not some random cellphone number. I forgot that OTP means One-Time PIN and the message does include a reminder that it should not be given to anyone.  

How can I miss how the supposed GCash representative would reply to me unprofessionally and in poor grammar: “What did you do? Did you open the app? Make sure app is closed because it will made error. [sic]”

I can go on and on realizing the red flags after the fact, but thinking of it is just psychologically distressing. Scam victims like me are left feeling ashamed and foolish. I didn’t know how to process what happened to me except blame myself.

I’m so glad that all things considered, my family was gentle and supportive. While they know this was a result of my poor judgment and carelessness, none of them actually criticized me. If for anything, my kuya said I should charge it to experience and just be more careful and vigilant next time. Maybe he saw how devastated I was that he perhaps felt sorry for me. He assured me that I will get what I lost back—in one form or another—maybe even in form of a blessing. 

I have reported it all this morning through GCash Help. I was asked for all the details like reference numbers and screenshots. Honestly, I’m not counting that I will get the money/funds back because they can simply say my account was compromised through my own fault. Even so, I feel the need to report as they might have a way to catch and stop the person behind this. 

It will be great if GCash adjusts the unauthorized charges just like what happened to a similar case here but if not—guess I’m doomed to pay for what the fraudster took (plus interest) by the cut-off.   

I hope that they can cancel the transaction so that the fraudster will not be able to make use of what was taken from me, whether it’s in form of money or goods. It will be somewhat vindicating to know that they went through all that shites for nothing.