NEWS

Electronic wallet glitch erases cash

Raffy Ayeng

Users of financial technology giant GCash’s app were in a panic yesterday after reports that money deposits suddenly disappeared, a problem the company attributed to a glitch.

GCash, in a statement, assured users their deposits were safe and the glitch was isolated.

The money that disappeared during the malfunction will be returned to the account owners, GCash assured.

Trader Rozel Gega-Turingan said on Facebook that she discovered P4,000 missing from her GCash account when she last checked it.

“It’s a good thing I already paid my supplier. Had I not, I’d be saying goodbye to my investment. I saw that Pokwang had lost funds, so I checked my app and saw that I had instantly lost P4,000. It’s no joke; I worked hard for that through live selling on my page. Hopefully, I’ll get it back. I submitted a ticket. I hope you fix it, GCash!” Turingan said in Filipino.

Another subscriber, Nica Gloduve-Conching, said she lost P38,000 to what she called in her social media post a “GCash scam.”

“I have never clicked on suspicious links, and I always delete suspicious messages. I don’t remember visiting any unusual websites either. At around 2 a.m., I received several successive GCash notifications saying ‘All Ang Paos were claimed!’, so I logged in to check. I then saw that I had only P1,116 left in my wallet. I lost P38,000 through 17 unauthorized transactions of P2,000 each going to different numbers (within one) minute,” she said.

Ang Paos are gift envelopes which, in the Chinese tradition, are given during special occasions such as the New Year.

DAILY TRIBUNE reporter Jing Villamente’s GCash balance of P13,000 was also lost Saturday morning.