Background image of the Facebook scam page OWWA Loan
APhilippine government agency, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), has warned Filipino employees in Hong Kong and Macau of an online scam using the agency’s name to solicit money in exchange for loans.
The loan scam, under the guise of a new OWWA scheme, requires an applicant to deposit HKD1,000 into a bank account order to release the cash. As a result, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Hong Kong and Macau has been receiving inquiries from Filipino migrant workers asking whether they could avail of the loans after paying the deposit.
The agency’s Administrator Rebecca Calzado stated that OWWA was not responsible for the scam and said the agency had launched an investigation accordingly.
Upon its investigation, OWWA said it was able to trace the source of the reports to a Facebook account named OWWA Loan, which used the OWWA agency logo as its profile picture without the necessary authorization.
A similar report was received from Labor Attaché Vivian Tornea of POLO-Macau, as a Facebook page called OWWA Loan used the agency’s logo as its profile picture to make similar offers to overseas Filipino workers on social media.
According to a statement issued by OWWA on Friday, the Facebook page has already been deactivated, and OWWA has already reported the fake account to Facebook management.
The OWWA Administrator further reminded the public to refrain from giving any information to unidentified persons and restrict transactions to government offices in order to protect themselves from scams.
“OWWA is reminding all overseas Filipino workers and the public to be vigilant of scams used by swindlers to deceive people, and not to give any information, especially financial [information], to unidentified persons,” she stressed. BY
No Comments