So a bitcoin scam has been getting a lot of publicity in the Philippines lately

[Question123]

Many people take advantages using names of the bitcoin to scamming a people who do not know the cryptocurrency.
That celebrity is famous named Boy Abunda and he is host by night talk show by the other celebrity and he is famous to my country.

I don't blame him for saying his opinion and make a statment aboyt what happen because that's the truth and I hope many people are understandable for that name of crypto was using only of people because crypto is very legit but those people are not.

By this statement possible the other people saw that was scared in crypto.

[mahilchii]

Oh my god!!! It looks so genuine I really don't understand how the government allow such people for an open scam, these people will exist until the people will be vanished from the world. They want to make their people's Fool and taking advantage to make money in a real quick time.

People are scammed only because they don't have enough knowledge on this also if the government supports crypto on their country, they have to take serious actions on such type of scammers to avoid scam in future.

[Janation]

By this statement possible the other people saw that was scared in crypto.

Obviously, they are terrified by it.

But here's the thing. There are a lot of scams going around the Philippines for a long time and most of the people are not aware of that. And after a long time, they would be forgetting about it and would fall for another scam. I think it is time for the government to take note of these incidents and they should educate the people about this. They should also focus on this since these scams can also affect the economy of the country for a long time.

[Kemarit]

So it's either the Philippines are getting traction that's why it has gained the attention of cyber criminals and think that Filipinos can easily fall for this trick because of this Filipino couple amasses at least P900M in alleged Bitcoin scam, or simply that Bitcoin is really becoming global so we shouldn't be surprised if some countries in Asia or in Africa are going to be the next target for this online criminals.

Again, the only weapon for this is to have enough knowledge and do our own investigations before we can invest on cryptos.

[Debonaire217]

Cryptocurrency advertisements are good when they are authorized and legitimate, but to associate a celebrity about a scam automated trading site is a pure manifestation of making citizens to lose trust to cryptocurrency.

That is why it is too hard for filipinos to advertise cryptocurrency even in simple words, people are taking advantage of the capabilities of crypto to use it as a tool to scam people when in fact, if it was used properly, we should have better future in cryptocurrency.

[CryptoBry]

My Facebook account is always exposed to these advertisements using pictures and names of different big names in both business and showbiz here in the Philippines. Shockingly, there are still many who are thinking that the ads are true. It is unfortunate that Facebook and Google have not yet taken down the ads; this is actually just many of the manifestations that their vetting process is not functioning well.

[dothebeats]

They are basically just editing a screenshot of whatever show they are watching and just change the headlines after. With all the available tools that we have right now for photo and video manipulation, it's fairly easy to do such and fool people with these edited pictures. Tons of those advertisements can be found on Filipino forums, Facebook pages, Twitter and whatnot. Whenever I have the time, I try to report all such posts to at least help notify these sites from the scams. Heck, even in Canadian, Thailand and Vietnamese forums would you see the same type of thing! That's why sometimes I'm thinking that it's better to filter cryptocurrency ads on Google or any other large websites that people frequent in order to minimize the number of people being scammed.

[Oasisman]

So it's either the Philippines are getting traction that's why it has gained the attention of cyber criminals and think that Filipinos can easily fall for this trick because of this Filipino couple amasses at least P900M in alleged Bitcoin scam, or simply that Bitcoin is really becoming global so we shouldn't be surprised if some countries in Asia or in Africa are going to be the next target for this online criminals.

Again, the only weapon for this is to have enough knowledge and do our own investigations before we can invest on cryptos.

Sad to say, but most of the Filipinos don't want to bother to learn about the business model of such investment programs. What these people care about is the profit that they received from their investments, without even thinking where the profit-money came from. The most recent example for this was the ponzi schemes like KAPA, Forex (Investment scheme name, not the Foreign Exchange trading), Rigen, and so on. They have deceived the people to believe that these companies is earning big amount of money from Cryptocurrency trading, thus making good amount of monthly ROI from each members.

That Php 900M is such a huge amount imagine the number of Filipino people who got fooled.

[AniviaBtc]

Oh my god!!! It looks so genuine I really don't understand how the government allow such people for an open scam, these people will exist until the people will be vanished from the world. They want to make their people's Fool and taking advantage to make money in a real quick time.

So everyone needs to be alert and observant so that you are aware of being scammed by those abusive people. Government has nothing to do with it but supporting them. Sometimes the problem in a certain country is the government itself that's why they don't have any progress for development. People should make a stand so that they aren't vulnerable about losing their money. Government is very powerful and people doesn't have any capability of doing something against them. Scammers are very good to jackass people so that they make a profit out of their  bad doings.

People are scammed only because they don't have enough knowledge on this also if the government supports crypto on their country, they have to take serious actions on such type of scammers to avoid scam in future.

Not only beginners are prone to this, some scammers are very professional so that even an old bitcoin user can be also a victim. We should read articles about this scams, it will also important to seek help and advice to those professional bitcoin users. Every country should know the importance of bitcoin, so that scammers are scared because of the consequences that they can acquire in fooling people. Government are the only people who have power in reducing people by catching them.

[Leonardo7]

Autotrading platforms that pay their investors dividends are nothing but a scam. USI-TECH rippled me off all my bitcoin even though I had a premonition to quite it because of unverifiable information they always presented, until the day they left the scene. These are the people who create cryptocurrency in a bad light.

[isaac_clarke22]

I hope it won't cause any considerations for a ban anytime.
Well I haven't even heard any news about thoughts of Duterte regarding cryptos anyway, just yet and I hope it stays that way.
I don't know what these trading bots do, but if there's gonna be case that some electronic will do the trades for me, I won't implement it in my strategy.

[pakhitheboss]

It's one of the reason why Filipinos are in doubt on trusting and believing bitcoin, it's reputation was ruined by people who deceives their fellowmen just to get the benefits they wanted. They don't realize how their actions can affect the perspective of other people but what can we expect? scammers will always look for an opportunity to trick those people who doesn't have enough understanding when it comes to bitcoin. It's the reason why people never change their mindsets, they just keep on looking on bitcoin's negative side because it is what people are trying to make them see. Filipinos must be aware that not everything they see on the internet is trustworthy and legit, for that reason they have to be careful especially when it looks too good to be true.

This why you need regulations, people are bound to be greedy and you cannot change them. If there was a law criminalizing such offence, then these scams would have been controlled to a large extent.

Sometimes regulations are good.

[lienfaye]

I heard about this news as well but since I used to watch on tv a scam related scenario involving crypto particularly bitcoin I was not surprise about this one.

But unfortunately for those people who dont have idea about crypto they will easily believe what they saw.

Scammers are doing every possible way to lure the people, advantage for them to use a popular personality for their own gains.

[Bitcoinislife09]

Not just recently, but most from the Philippines, specially the the generation x or what we call boomers, they believe that cryptocurrency is just a scam. It is because cryptocurrency became popular when scammers used cryptos to lure people in to investing because of the good offer. I think, it is just cryptos were introduced in a bad way that's why people think that it is a scam, while in fact cryptocurrency is legit and there are just some people who use it to scam others.

[nutildah]

Sad to say, but most of the Filipinos don't want to bother to learn about the business model of such investment programs. What these people care about is the profit that they received from their investments, without even thinking where the profit-money came from. The most recent example for this was the ponzi schemes like KAPA, Forex (Investment scheme name, not the Foreign Exchange trading), Rigen, and so on. They have deceived the people to believe that these companies is earning big amount of money from Cryptocurrency trading, thus making good amount of monthly ROI from each members.

Unfortunately I have found this to be true as well. My neighbor in Pampanga got hooked in the Trade Coin Club, thinking that his deposit was going toward some kind of trading investment when really it was just a basic MLM / Ponzi scheme. Probably the most devious part about it was that he was referred to the scam by a fellow church member, whom he trusted and thought was a stand-up guy.

When I first moved in to my apartment, I struck up a conversation with the guy, and we got to talking about our jobs. I told him I wrote about bitcoin, and then he showed me his Trade Coin Club app. I took a look at it -- he showed me his easy profits and how it worked, and then thought, oh yeah, that's a scam. So I tried to explain to him why he needed to be careful...

Sure enough, you couldn't withdraw the funds until after a contract expired, and withdrawing beforehand would incur massive penalties. Basically there was no way to profit other than through recruiting others. So after our conversation the guy tried to get his "friend" on the phone (the one who got him into it), and I think he pretty much realized he had been scammed at that point (out of what was about 400,000 pesos at that time).

So how did the guy thank me? By buying a German Shepard that would bark every day (and every night) the next day. 

[pixie85]

People get scammed because they're greedy and have high hopes. If someone is promising you 100% a year or more you should expect a scam! There's no free money and nobody is going to do something good for a stranger. It's not charity, it's a game of survival!

I don't feel sad for people who get scammed by HYIPS and ponzis. They can only blame themselves.

[Mumbeeptind1963]

In general, there's a lot of scammer in the Philippines. Filipinos are taking advantage of the weakness of other Filipinos as well. Filipinos easily believe on what they are seeing without doing further research that's why there's a lot of fake news spreading in my country. And one of that is this kind of scam. When it comes to earning money, they believe almost everything. And it's the reason why they are using famous names to make it more believable for others.

People always uses the weakness of others in order for them to get what they want to have, since Mr. Abunda really dont have a proper and wide knowledge about crytocurrency, he could be a perfect target by them. Us , bitcoin users needed to inform our friends and even all the countrymen what does cryptocurrency all about, when this news has been spread out many people will stereotype this one, and telling that all ways in crypto is not trusted, since abunda is influencial and being scammed, normal people would believe in what they hear and see not what will be the real crypto will be.

[wozzek23]

Man, this is no longer a new thing. This type of scam is like a regular thing and I keep seeing a lot of them on platforms like Twitter and even Instagram. They pretend that their project is endorsed by celebrities and before you know it you’re scammed. These scammers keeps getting smart like everyday.

I once saw one that claimed to be from the Ethereum foundation and said they are giving away Ethereum for free but you will have to send a particular amount and they will multiply it by ten, for example: you send 0.7 Ether and they will send you 7 ETH. They were even doing a fake Livestream on YouTube featuring Vitalik Buterin, and disabled the comments section, lol such a wise move .

[Wysi]

Other big names involved in this scam spectrum should voice out and clarify the have nothing to do with these scammers and sue them as well because bloody scammers are looting innocent people who invest from the hard-earned money. This creates a negative impact on the real trading companies as well. I have seen some of the tenured users falling in this trap as well so whenever we encounter any such things we need to highlight it in this forum and other crypto discussion forums so that it will help others.

[thesmallgod]

People are taking advantages of the anonymity of crypto to scam others and the worst of the matter is that when such things happen, the trust the people have for bitcoin diminish because they start to see it as a route through which their hard earn savings are being taken from them. It is so sad that from what the op have said, alot of filipino have little or no understanding about bitcoin and this on the other hand will make them more vulnurable to scam. I hope soon, we shall have a more reliable way of dealing with bad eggs among crypto enthusiast that are using the technology to defraud people.