By Joann Villanueva | Philippine News Agency
MANILA – Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) is conducting another investigation on the case of a public school teacher in Quezon City who lost P121,000 through an alleged fraudulent online transaction.
In an interview by the Philippine News Agency, William Montecalvo, who is teaching in San Bartolome High School in Quezon City, said he received an email from the Landbank Quezon City Hall branch on Jan. 21, informing him of the latest round of inquiry about his complaints.
“I just received an email from them saying that the reinvestigation is ongoing,” he said.
He clarified that he did not request for a reinvestigation of his case, but for a copy of the email that the bank said it received which confirmed and authenticated the validity of the OTPs.
The request was made through a formal letter, he said.
Montecalvo said the bank, on its Jan. 3, 2022 decision, will not reimburse the questioned amount since these transactions are valid as confirmed by the email that the bank received for the OTPs.
“Kaya hindi ko sinasang-ayunan ‘yung sinasabi nila na biktima kami ng phishing. Baka ‘yung iba, pero in my case sure ako na hindi phishing yun. ‘Yun nga ‘yung hinihiling namin sa Landbank, linawin niyo kasi nagdesisyon na sila sa case ko. (This is why I don’t’ agree to their decision saying we’re victims of phishing. Maybe, the others are, but I’m sure that in my case, it’s not. And that’s why we are calling on Landbank to clarify their decision because they have decided on my case),” he said.
Phishing happens when criminals send a link thru email or thru short messaging system (SMS) that will allow him to use the victim’s information and access the account once the link was clicked by the victim.
Landbank earlier said its investigation on the case of two teachers who reported alleged unauthorized transactions in their accounts with the bank showed that “the devices of the teachers were hacked via phishing which compromised their personal information.”
Montecalvo, who has been in teaching profession since 2004, said the fraudulent transactions happened for around an hour on the midnight of Nov. 12, wherein he received more than 10 messages informing him of one-time password (OTP) for online transactions for his Landbank account using the bank’s iAccess mobile application.
He said he did not check the messages until the afternoon of the same day after his classes.
He has also not received any email informing him of the said transactions when the said incident happened, he said.
Enrollment of his account to Landbank’s 24/7 online banking channel in 2021 was made upon the advice of Landbank tellers, he said. Montecalvo said he only checks in iAccess to check his account balance.
He noted that the money taken from his account are savings accumulated in the past three years “because I only withdraw cash that we will need.”
“Buti na lang nangyari ‘yun two days before ibigay ‘yung bonus at iba pang cash benefits. Kaya naman nung nalaman ko ‘yun, agad ako nag-withdraw (It’s a good thing that incident happened two days before our bonus and other benefits were given. I immediately withdrew all the funds),” he said.
Montecalvo said his wife, a nurse, is keeping their funds in another bank.
Asked for his thoughts on the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) program to further digitalize financial transactions in the country following his experience on online transactions, Montecalvo said this bid is laudable, but the government needs to check on the capacity of companies that will undertake this.
“I think Landbank’s IT (information technology) is poor on this. The security of bank accounts is the responsibility of banks,” he said.
He disclosed that there was a time in the past when he accidentally typed in a wrong password for his iAccess account resulting in the account to be locked.
Montecalvo, however, said the hacking of his account is questionable since the OTP was sent more than 10 times but his account was not locked.
He added that there is no chance that his account will be hacked because he has not clicked any link and that he is the only one using his tablet.
Relatively, Crisanto M. Cruz, a teacher in Amaya School of Home Industries in Cavite, said he is not optimistic anymore of getting back the P84,815 he claimed was fraudulently taken from his account on Dec. 30, 2021.
“Dahil ito sa resolusyon ng mga nauna sa akin (It’s because of the resolutions on cases that happened before mine’s),” he told the PNA.
He said he does not believe in the bank’s fraud team because it was not able to detect the crimes on the accounts of other teachers who have been given resolutions on their cases.
He said the missing money is a big loss for him because it is for his expenses such as maintenance medicines for hypertension and problems on kidney and prostate.
Cruz, who started teaching in the Cavite-based public high school in September 2021, said he was advised by a teller from Landbank-Trece Martirez to open an iAccess account to be able to check his payroll account online.
He, however, said after what happened to his account he was advised to delete it and make another one since the previous one has been compromised.
“I was required by the teller to open an iAccess account but I haven’t used it. There is a poster outside of the bank that you need to have online account,” he said.
Over the weekend, Landbank said it welcomed the probe to be conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), in line with the issuance of a Department Order by the Department of Justice (DOJ), on the alleged phishing scam on several teachers.
Landbank President and CEO Cecilia Borromeo said the bank is also coordinating with the Department of Education (DepEd) for the list of teachers who were reportedly victimized through phishing.
“We will actively participate in this investigation and extend full cooperation to the NBI with the end in mind of further securing our depositors’ hard-earned money. We are also reaching out to the affected teachers and conducting an internal investigation on their complaints. In the meantime, we assure our clients and the general public that LANDBANK’s systems remain stable and secured,” she said. (PNA) -ag
