22 days without a car

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UPDATE: I was able to recover my funds, intact. God is good to me even if I’m being stupid. Kudos to the excellent anti-fraud teams of UBP and EWB who acted swiftly. It’s a harrowing experience.

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Today my EastWest Bank accounts were phished and funds and were transferred to a Union Bank account. Around PHP 300,000 or more than USD 5000.

Using my connections at Union Bank, I have reported the bank transactions and the UBP account used to funnel funds so they can freeze it. The syndicate doing this is also using my credentials to hack into my UBP account as I received SMS and emails from legit UBP number and email address about this attempt.

I think the syndicate is a crypto gang, and this is similar to just like what they did to BDO account holders at the beginning of this year. They used a UBP account as a conduit to funnel funds into crypto accounts because this bank has connections to crypto or they’re dipping their hands into crypto so it’s easier to move money from a legit bank to a crypto account and international transfers are easier. UBP has very loose eKYC, like GCash.

I don’t think I can get back the money but I’m trying to trap the syndicate. I am in constant communication now with UBP people and my next stop is NBI. I just have to make sure they have frozen the account before I go to NBI so that the scammer/s cannot withdraw the money.

Someone is still watching over me since my BDO account wasn’t touched as it was under maintenance last night until this morning. ❤️

My HSBC credit card was hacked earlier this year and some purchases in the US were made. These were reversed as I was able to prove that the physical card is with me the same time the transactions in the US were made. I think they gained access into my account when I subscribed to Windows CCleaner app or Malware Bytes. Same thing happened to my Citi credit card; there were attempts to use my card which were unauthorized but with Citi, they were the ones who immediately invalidated the transactions and shut down my credit card number.

It’s hard to do anything online these days. The problem is, everything is going online.