Banks warn: Don’t rent ‍out your accounts

“Do not let other people use your bank account, debit card or credit card to make transactions on their behalf. Never provide your personal and account details to anyone,” the country’s largest lender, BDO Unibank, said in a recent advisory that warned against the latest ploy to move dirty money in the guise of donations, e-commerce and other legitimate online transactions.

Also called “smurfing,” the ploy is common among money launderers who break up large amounts of money into smaller transactions to avoid suspicion from financial regulators.

As more people migrate to digital banking channels because of lockdown restrictions, there has been a big surge in online payment transactions, a fertile ground for scammers who prey on unsuspecting individuals to steal their sensitive data such as personal identification numbers, banking and credit card details, and passwords.

The slew of fund-raising activities for medical front-liners and poor families during the COVID-19 pandemic has also become a convenient cover to use legitimate banking channels to move dirty money.

A favorite target for such scams are overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who regularly remit funds and won’t arouse suspicion when they make cross-border cash transfers.

“This has always been a risk that we monitor…That’s why we have strict monitoring of those who remit more than their salaries; we also check the frequency of these remittances,” the president of a big local bank said in an interview on Thursday.

Students in the University Belt area also make for ideal “money mules,” the banker said, since students regularly receive allowances from their parents and won’t easily be suspected of taking part in money laundering operations.

The BDO source said scammers often convince account holders to let them use their accounts for money transfers in exchange for commission, P2,000 a day in most cases.Ignore suspicious calls, emails, private messages and website links offering easy cash in exchange for the use of your own bank account, BDO advised its clients and the general public.

Participating in such schemes can result in prosecution under Republic Act 9160 or the Anti-Money Laundering Act, with imprisonment of up to seven years and a penalty of up to P3 million, the bank warned.

In the Philippines, transactions at banks, stock brokerage houses, insurance firms and other financial institutions that are worth at least P500,000 must be reported to the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

Any transaction worth over P1 million by jewelry and precious metal dealers and any single casino transaction exceeding P5 million are likewise monitored.

The most effective way of preventing scams that target bank customers is to never share bank information with other people, especially the One-Time Pin (OTP) sent you as security measure for online transactions, even if the other person sounds like a bank employee, BDO said.

Email that asks people to click on links are scam attacks, even if it includes the spelled out bank website as a hyperlink. To check the veracity of the email, BDO advised its customers to let the cursor linger on the weblink without clicking on it. A preview will reveal that it leads to a different site and not to your bank’s official website.