THE Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Act needs “more teeth” if it is to stop online scams, Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers said Sunday.
The law, Republic Act 11934, was approved in 2022 by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Barbers said that despite the law, online scamming continues.
“To minimize or stop online scamming and illegal transactions that victimize unsuspecting victims, we should amend and add more teeth to the SIM Card Law to put a stop and/or make obsolete those various scamming schemes,” he said.
Scamming syndicates buy in bulk prepaid SIM cards “because they can always provide fake or fraudulent details of their phone users,” Barbers said.
Telecommunications companies “have no capability or system to monitor and catch these scammers who are using a subscriber's altered postpaid SIM IDs,” he added.
Among the online scams were phishing, ATM skimming, identity theft, lottery scams, crowdfunding scams, romance scams, advance fee fraud, SIM Swap scams, Blackmail scams, and credit card scams.
Barbers said scamming techniques involved “various psychological manipulations aimed at persuading the client-victims to make a hasty, irrational and unsafe” decision to give personal details, property or money.
Barbers, chairman of the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs, said some drug traffickers also use postpaid SIM cards to hide their identities and prevent detection.
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