Have you received text alerts from the Social Security System (SSS) regarding benefit claims or expiring contribution payments? Please be cautious, as those messages are fake.
On Thursday, July 18, SSS issued a warning to its members and the public to remain vigilant against deceptive text messages sent by malicious individuals posing as SSS representatives. These messages falsely promise recipients incentives in exchange for clicking on a provided link.
Normita M. Doctor, SSS Member Services and Support Group’s senior vice president, said that the pension fund has been receiving reports from members who have encountered text alerts related to benefit claims, expiring contribution payments, or My.SSS registration.
“Do not click the link in the message of these fake text alerts. It will lead to a phishing site that will steal personal information such as SS numbers and login credentials from My.SSS account,” Doctor said.
Doctor said that members and the public can easily determine if they have received a fraudulent text alert by verifying the sender.
“The SMS sender should be ‘SSS’ and the official SSS website is www.sss.gov.ph. If it is an unidentified mobile number, it is a text message from scammers purposely sent to deceive its receiver,” she said.
“Our SSS Special Investigation Department (SID) has already probed the incidents. We also submitted a Text Scam Complaint containing these fake text alerts to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to help the government fight scam text messages,” she said.
She discouraged them from sharing their SS number, usernames, passwords, and other login details of their My.SSS account with these scammers so their My.SSS accounts will not be compromised and be used for fraudulent transactions.
Doctor advised those who have become victims of these text scammers to directly report it to law enforcement authorities such as the Philippine National Police’s Anti-Cybercrime Group and the National Bureau of Investigation’s Cybercrime Division.
“With the assistance of our SSS SID, victims can help law enforcement agencies in filing a case against text scammers. They can report text scammers to SID via email at [email protected] or through telephone at (02) 89247370,” she concluded.