The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said on Friday it would investigate reports of “prank deliveries” using online shopping platforms, which have increased in the wake of lockdowns that kept most people confined to their homes to avoid infection by the coronavirus.
In a message to reporters on Friday, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez announced that the DTI’s consumer protection and legal groups would handle reports of alleged pranksters using an individual’s name, address and contact details to make an online purchase and have it delivered to that person.
“If that person is not a consumer, but [his or her] identity and profile have been used and violated, and [has] become a victim of prank deliveries…there is [a] violation of privacy and fraud, and must be investigated to trace the violator,” Lopez said.
The Trade department will work with the intelligence or cybercrime units of the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police on this matter, he added.
The announcement comes after a reporter cited the case of a colleague from state-run Philippine News Agency who received high-priced products ordered through Shopee — whose app she didn’t have — and was expected to pay for them.
It also comes after social media user Rome Vladimir Cuevas posted on his Facebook account on Tuesday a picture of over a dozen motorcycle riders from mobile food delivery firm foodpanda waiting outside his home in Manila’s Paco district to deliver meals that he or his family didn’t order.
Cuevas wrote that each order was worth between P1,700 and P1,900. He paid for some of the deliveries while his neighbors shouldered the others.
The “DTI will issue an advisory to warn the public not to engage in such acts, since they can be held criminally liable… and advise business establishments to have [a] different verification system,” the Trade chief said.
“We will also have to push for the SIM (subscriber identity module) registration system, so there’s traceability and accountability on the SIM usage,” he added.
Last month, the DTI told a House of Representatives hearing that most of the online transaction complaints it received from January to October were against Shopee and another online shopping platform, Lazada.
Besides the SIM registration system, the DTI also supports House Bill 7805, or the “Internet Transactions Act,” which it said would further grow electronic commerce (ecommerce) and safeguard consumers.
The proposed law seeks to establish an “eCommerce Bureau” that will promote the development of ecommerce in the country by building trust between sellers and consumers, stronger online consumer protection, safer e-payment gateways, easier online business registration, and formulation of other policies and programs to increase the number of online merchants and customers.
The House approved HB 7805 on third and final reading on November 24.