Cyber Scams

Several news items have come out about the latest pyramiding scam in the market. They are now offering to double a $1,000 investment in just 22 days. But this time they are doing it over the internet. The schemes are being marketed through http://www.franswiss.biz and http://deutchfrancs.com.

We can recall that in history there has been several schemes of this nature where the investments of the later members is what’s being paid to the earlier members so that only they can get their investments back while thousands are left with nothing. In the past though, at least some of the culprits are held answerable. But with the use of the internet now the people behind the schemes are faceless, nameless and could potentially get away scott free and just put up another website. This is because Filipinos have always been fascinated with the idea of get rich quick schemes.

On a personal note, I actually know several people who got into this early and now have more than $4,000 out of their initial investment. But I can’t say I approve of what they are doing because there will be countless others from whom that money came from who will no longer recover their hard earned money. Or at the very least the money they put in could not possibly be invested in something clean and legal because then the people behind it should not be afraid of going through the normal process of registering with the BSP as a quasi-banking institution.

Cyber crime laws could be a solution in the prosecution of crimes like these. In the proposed law as discussed in class, this kind of activity will be punishable as it uses IT as an instrument to the commission of the crime. (One of the four means of committing a cyber crime.)