Over the years, scams targeting Filipinos living or working abroad have become common, with scammers posing under the guise of government officials or financial institutions, preying on their trust or their families left in the Philippines.

In a recent report by an Australian public media outlet on 3 March, the parents of Mark Gayo, a Filipino residing in Australia with his wife, became victims of a scam through a phone call from someone claiming to be personnel from the Philippine Consulate General in Sydney.

Gayo recalled receiving multiple phone calls from his parents in the Philippines on 1 March at around 5 a.m. in Australia. He said he and his wife were not notified of these calls because their phones were in do-not-disturb mode.

“When I woke up around five, as soon as I answered, my father was crying on the phone but I couldn’t understand so I ended the call and called my mother. When she answered, she asked, ‘Are you okay? How are you?’ I said, ‘Ma, I just woke up.’ Then she told my father, ‘Oh no, we got scammed,’” Gayo said.

Gayo’s mother recounted that someone posing as personnel from the Consulate in Sydney called them by phone, claiming that Gayo was in critical condition after a fight with his supervisor and had been flown from Australia to Mactan, Cebu, in a five-hour flight. However, Gayo clarified that he and his wife do not work but operate a business in Australia.

“At first, my mother didn’t believe the caller. She thought it was nothing, as if she was just testing them. They didn’t really entertain it much at first,” he said.

However, they soon received another call on their landline at their home in Baguio, which caught them off guard.