"x x x.
I AM writing about my experience in reporting to the National Bureau of Investigation Cyber Crimes Division a probable cybercrime on the popular website olx.ph.
I am a frequent visitor of this site used to be known as sulit.com.ph. On May 7, I saw an ad offering a Macbook Pro laptop for P13,500, “rush sale.” I had my doubts because the price was simply too low to be true, but I contacted the seller through text. To make the story short, after several text exchanges, I concluded that this was one Internet fraud which could victimize a lot of unsuspecting habitues of, or newbies in, online buying.
I called the NBI Cyber Crimes Division and talked to one of their employees there. I was told that I needed to go to the NBI office on Taft Avenue personally, to file a report and sign it. I asked the staff if there was any other way I could make the report because I am already 62 years old, had a bypass surgery, and it was simply too hot that week. He told me that was the procedure that they follow before they could “proceed with the investigation.”
I am so frustrated with this procedure of the NBI. The agency will not handle a simple tip or report about a suspicious activity because it wants a complainant who is willing to sign a document, and to be there at their offices personally to do exactly that. I should have simply told them to log in to olx.ph and search for “Macbook Pro,” and they would have seen what I was talking about.
Now, how to go about it is not my expertise but the NBI’s. That is also the reason I did not inform olx.ph because they might delete the posting and it might become more difficult for the NBI to trace the perpetrators. The last time I checked the posting, it already had 290 views. At present, olx.ph has suspended the poster and deleted the post.
So, where do we go from here? How many of the 290 viewers actually bit on the ploy and remitted money to the ghost seller?
We could have nipped this crime in the bud if only the NBI has a more effective way of dealing with reports on suspicious activities. This was a cybercrime and they only needed to sit in front of their computers to do their sleuthing.
—JOAQUIN LOPEZ,
reneisla@rogers.com
x x x."
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/84981/dismaying-nbi-procedure-in-tracing-cybercrimes#ixzz3aXrwDfxP
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