Whoscall Philippines and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) have teamed up to warn Filipinos about travel scams.  They urged everyone to be vigilant and protect themselves as part of the Online Bantay Lakbay 2024 campaign.

The Online Bantay Lakbay 2024 is the anti-travel scam campaign of Scam Watch Pilipinas, DICT, Department of Transportation (DOTr), Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) and Special Action and Intelligence Committee for Transportation (SAICT).

Whoscall Philippines Country Head and Southeast Asia Regional Director of Gogolook, Mel Migriño, emphasized that the modus operandi of online culprits involves a combination of various scams, especially those related to threats encountered while traveling.

“The last thing we want is to be a victim of online scam while we are on vacation so we should be able to distinguish legitimate contacts from suspicious or scam numbers. Whoscall's role is to identify incoming calls, distinguishing between legitimate contacts and suspicious or scam numbers,” Migriño said.

At the campaign launch held recently, DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy highlighted the importance of the partnership with Whoscall in light of the cyber fraud landscape.

"We partnered with Whoscall because their system helps detect if the text messages or messages you receive on WhatsApp and Viber may be from scammers or not authentic," Uy said.

Whoscall is an anti-scam application developed by leading TrustTech company Gogolook which can identify incoming calls, distinguishing between legitimate contacts and suspicious or scam numbers. Additionally, it detects malicious links embedded within short message service (SMS) messages automatically.

Migriño highlighted the integration of Whoscall with Viber and WhatsApp. “This useful application will alert its users to malicious numbers and links while using the mentioned messaging applications,” Migriño said.

Migriño also pointed out the Whoscall's URL scanner which can help users avoid malicious websites that could lead to scams and frauds.

"Just copy and paste or scan it (URL) using the Whoscall mobile application. You will be provided with a 'risk level' so that we are guided every time we are booking any transactions online," she said.

Scam Watch Pilipinas Co-Founder and Co-Lead Convenor Jocel de Guzman said that the Whoscall app is the first line of defense against suspicious numbers and fraudulent websites. “We have included the use of Whoscall in our education campaign against scam because it can really put the device on-guard mode to identify fraudulent numbers,” De Guzman said.