Pinoys lose P280 B to scammers – report

Scams have become a pervasive national threat, with Filipinos encountering fraud attempts at a rate of nearly one every two days and losing an estimated P280.5 billion in just 12 months, according to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA)s latest state of scams report.

- Keisha Ta-asan

The study, conducted among 1,000 Filipino adults and weighted to reflect the national population, found that 77 percent of Filipinos encountered a scam attempt in the past year, equivalent to 239 scam exposures per person annually.

Meanwhile, 65 percent said they were successfully scammed, with victims experiencing an average of 2.3 incidents.

The financial fallout has been severe, with 31 percent of adults reporting monetary losses averaging P11,896 per victim, translating to the multibillion-peso national estimate. Losses were most commonly siphoned through digital wallets (74 percent), followed by bank transfers and cash transactions.

“When nearly one in three Filipinos loses money to a scam, it’s not just a digital safety issue. It’s a household stability issue,” GASA director for Asia Pacific Brian Hanley said in a statement.

“People are cutting back on daily needs, doubting the tools they rely on, and carrying the emotional weight long after the scam is over. Solving this requires partners working together instead of fighting the problem in silos," he added.