The island province’s economy gets a new boost this year, with the branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) formally opening its doors to the public this coming Monday, Jan. 31, 2022 at 8 AM.
Bishop Manolo delos Santos, Governor Joseph Cua and Virac Mayor Sinforoso Sarmiento Jr. will grace the blessing of the RCBC Virac Business Center at the Riverside building of the Virac Town Center in barangay Gogon Sirangan.
It may be recalled that the branch was supposed to open in the last quarter of 2021 but ongoing renovation work on the former Chicken Deli restaurant led to the delay.
The branch is headed by former Robinsons Bank branch manager Russel Valeza as operations manager and veteran Banco de Oro branch manager Evan Tabuzo as business relationship manager.
Congratulations to the two managers and their staff!
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Last December 2021, more than 700 clients of BDO Unibank lost more than P5 million in unauthorized bank transfers to accounts of scammers, five of whom were arrested later in entrapment operations.
Apparently, the clients were duped into opening an account verification email purportedly from the scammers who posed as BDO officers.
Gaining access to the clients’ passwords, the suspects were able to access bank accounts and made the fund transfers while supposedly bypassing the One-Time-Pin (OTP) requirement.
Late last year, this writer was victimized by a group of scammers hiding under the company ShinyStyle.club.
I inadvertently clicked on ad supposedly of PLDT requesting the reader to answer a survey on the company’s services and promising a free phone.
I later realized that the survey was fake after another survey request, this one of Globe, appeared in its place.
A week later, I received a statement of account for my credit card from Robinsons Bank that included unauthorized, dollar-denominated charges from ShinyStyle.club.
The charges were made without my knowledge and permission, as I received no request for One-Time Pin (OTP) confirmation from the bank on my cellphone.
To the bank’s credit, it promptly removed the illegal charges after I filed a dispute form and asked them to cancel the credit card account and issue another card in my name.
However, similar charges from the scammers appeared in a later statement of account, indicating they also knew my new credit card number as well as that three-digit code at the back.
I had no recourse but to request for deactivation of the new card.
In a recent Inquirer article, Unionbank vice president Jaypee Soliman said that phishing, the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, is no longer limited to emails as it can be done through popular sites, like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, such as through bogus promos or ads.
He advised people not to share sensitive information with others and to avoid using the same passwords across platforms and emails especially for mobile banking.
“Think before you click,” Soliman said, urging clients to only shop in reputable sites and keep their devices and software updated.
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SHOPLIFTING. An old lady got caught shoplifting. On court day, the lady and her husband who goes with her stood before the judge and he said to her, “Why did you shoplift?”
“I was hungry,” she replied.
The judge said, “What did you take?”
She replied, “A can of peaches.”
So the judge, trying to figure out how to punish her, asked again, “How many peaches were in the can?”
“Six,” answered the old lady.
So the judge ruled, “Okay then, one day per peach in jail. That will be six days of time served.”
“Would anyone like to say anything,” asked the judge.
And her husband stood up and declared, “Your honor, she stole a can of peas, too.”