CyberCode.ph · Philippines

Romance Scam in the Philippines: How to Report It and Try to Get Your Money Back

Last updated October 4, 2026 · Practical privacy, cybersecurity and technology-law guidance
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Direct answer

Report it in two places at once, in this order. First call your bank or e-wallet and ask them to hold and trace the transfer, because the money moves in minutes. Then file a criminal complaint for estafa with the NBI or the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group, and log the scam with the CICC’s 24/7 hotline 1326. There is no offence called “romance scam” in Philippine law. What you have is estafa by false pretences, usually committed through information and communications technology, and a receiving account that is very often a money mule account you can dispute.

The table below is the short version of everything on this page. Read it before you do anything else.

Element What applies to a romance scam
Rule Estafa by false pretences under Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code as amended by RA 10951, Section 85. Where ICT was used, RA 10175, Section 6 raises the penalty one degree.
Exception You authorised every transfer yourself, so AFASA’s social engineering definition may not reach your own account. The receiving account is the stronger ground — see Section 4(a).
Evidence Transaction reference numbers, the receiving account name and number, the full chat and call history, the profile, and every photo or document the person sent you.
Timing The CICC says funds may be frozen and potentially recovered if the bank is told within 30 minutes of a transfer. The statutory hold under AFASA runs to 30 calendar days once a hold is actually placed.
Next step Call your bank or wallet now, on its published hotline, and say the words “disputed transaction, suspected money mule account”. Get a case reference number before you hang up.

The rest of this guide explains each of those lines, where the figures come from, and what the government has actually published about recovery.

Key takeaways

  1. The clock that decides whether you see the money again is measured in minutes, not days. Everything else — the complaint, the affidavit, the case — can wait an hour. The call to your bank cannot.
  2. You authorised the transfer, and that is the hard legal problem. Romance scam victims press send themselves. That changes which rule helps you.
  3. The account that received your money is usually the better target. Under RA 12010, Section 4(a), using or lending an account to receive proceeds known to come from crimes or social engineering schemes is money muling, a prohibited act, and that gives your bank an independent reason to hold the funds.
  4. Recovery happens, but it is uncommon. The CICC reported that victims recovered ₱20.1 million in 2025; the same report cites global anti-scam surveys putting typical recovery at only about 3 percent of scammed funds.
  5. The amount you lost decides the criminal bracket, and the brackets are wide. Under RA 10951, a loss just over ₱40,000 and a loss of ₱1,200,000 sit in the same band.
  6. If the ask was “pay to release a parcel from Customs”, the Bureau of Customs has published the answer that ends it. Customs money is never collected through an e-wallet, a remittance centre or a personal account.
  7. The person you fell for may be a trafficking victim working under coercion. That does not remove your fraud remedy, and it opens a second reporting route through IACAT and the 1343 Action Line.

Jump to a section

Why no Philippine law says “romance scam”

Search the statute books for “romance scam” or “love scam” and you will find nothing. The phrase is a description of a method, not a legal category. That is not a gap in the law — it means your case has to be filed as something the law does recognise, and choosing wrongly costs you time you do not have.

What actually happened to you, in legal terms, is almost always estafa by false pretences. Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code covers fraud committed by false pretences “executed prior to or simultaneously with the commission of the fraud” — which is exactly what an invented identity, an invented emergency and an invented romance are. Because the deception ran over a phone and a messaging app, RA 10175, the Cybercrime Prevention Act, is also in play: Section 6 provides that crimes under the Revised Penal Code committed by, through and with the use of information and communications technology carry a penalty “one (1) degree higher than that provided for”.

A separate question is whether the fake identity itself was a crime. It can be, and we cover that in full in our guide on whether catfishing is a crime in the Philippines, which deals with computer-related identity theft, the Safe Spaces Act and the routes available when someone used a real person’s face. This page is about the money.

The practical consequence is that the page you are reading is not a guide to one offence. It is a guide to three separate lanes that run at different speeds, and you should open all three.

The authorised-transfer problem, and the way around it

This is the single most important paragraph on this page, and most guides skip it.

When someone hacks your e-wallet and drains it, the transfer was unauthorised: you did not make it. That is the situation our guide on an unauthorised e-wallet transaction in the Philippines is built for, and the law gives you a clear handle on it.

A romance scam is the opposite. You logged in. You typed the amount. You approved the one-time password. Every transfer was authorised by you, voluntarily, because you believed a story. That matters because RA 12010, the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act, defines a “social engineering scheme” in Section 3 as obtaining another person’s sensitive identifying information by deception or fraud, resulting in unauthorised access and control over their financial account. In a romance scam nobody took control of your account. You operated it.

So the obvious-looking statute may not reach your own transfer. Here is the way around it, and it is a real one.

Look at the other end. RA 12010, Section 4(a) makes it a prohibited act to obtain, receive, deposit, transfer or withdraw proceeds known to derive from crimes or from social engineering schemes — that is money muling. Romance scam money almost never lands in the scammer’s own named account. It lands in a rented, borrowed or bought account belonging to someone else, which is precisely what Section 4(a) describes. Our guide on money mule account liability in the Philippines explains how those accounts are set up and why the account holder is exposed.

That gives you a sentence to say to your bank that is both accurate and operationally useful: this is a disputed transaction, and I believe the receiving account is a money mule account. It moves your case out of “I regret a payment I made” and into a category the institution has a published reason to act on.

A full account of the statute, its offences and its penalties is in our guide to the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (RA 12010).

The three clocks, and which one decides the money

Three different periods get quoted in discussions of scam recovery, and they are routinely confused with one another. They do different jobs. Only the first one decides whether your money still exists in a traceable form.

Clock Length What it governs Where it comes from
The recovery window About 30 minutes from the transfer Whether the institution can realistically freeze the funds before they are moved on or cashed out. This is operational, not a legal duty. Reported statement of CICC Undersecretary Aboy Paraiso, PIA, 4 February 2026
The statutory hold Up to 5 calendar days, extendable to 25, maximum 30 How long a bank or wallet may hold funds already identified as the subject of a disputed transaction RA 12010, Section 7 and BSP Circular No. 1215, s. 2025
The complaint clock 2 days to acknowledge, 7 or 45 to resolve, 9 or 47 to inform you, all counted from receipt (the appendix does not say banking or calendar days) How quickly the institution must handle your written complaint and tell you the outcome BSP Manual of Regulations for Banks, Appendix 115
The evidence clock 6 months, extendable once by 6 months How long a service provider must preserve traffic data, subscriber information and content data once ordered RA 10175, Section 13

Read that table in order and the strategy writes itself. In the first half hour you are trying to stop money. After that you are trying to build a case, and the case has months, not minutes. The commonest and costliest mistake romance scam victims make is spending the first two hours writing a detailed account of what happened instead of making a two-minute phone call.

One caution on the 30-minute figure, because it matters. It is a reported operational statement by a CICC official about what financial institutions can do when told quickly. It is not a published rule, and no bank or wallet is under any 30-minute duty that this guide was able to verify. Treat it as a description of how fast you need to move, not as a right you can enforce.

Lane 1: the payment rail

This lane is about the money, and it is the only lane with a realistic chance of returning it. Open it first, before you tell anyone else what happened.

Call the institution you sent the money from — your bank, GCash, Maya, whichever it was — on its own published hotline or in-app support channel, not on a number someone sent you. Say that you are reporting a disputed transaction and that you believe the receiving account is a money mule account. Ask them to place a hold on the funds and to start a coordinated verification with the receiving institution. Get a case reference number.

What you are invoking, whether or not you name it, is this. RA 12010, Section 7 permits institutions to temporarily hold funds subject of a disputed transaction within the period the BSP prescribes, not exceeding thirty calendar days. Section 8 provides that on a complaint, the institutions and account owners involved must begin a coordinated verification process. BSP Circular No. 1215, series of 2025, issued under Monetary Board Resolution No. 523 dated 22 May 2025, sets the actual periods: an initial hold of not more than 5 calendar days, an extended hold of not more than 25, and a maximum of 30 calendar days, extendable beyond that only by court order. Among the listed grounds for a hold is that the transaction was facilitated through social engineering.

If your own institution refuses to act, or simply stops replying, there is an escalation path and a gate on it.

Step Where it goes What governs it
1. The institution’s own mechanism Your bank or wallet’s consumer assistance channel, free of charge RA 11765, Section 8(f) requires every financial service provider to maintain a single consumer assistance mechanism, free to the consumer
2. Written complaint, with clocks Same institution, but in writing so the deadlines bite Appendix 115: acknowledge within 2 days of receipt; simple cases resolved within 7 and communicated within 9; complex cases within 45 and 47
3. Escalation to the BSP BSP Consumer Assistance Mechanism, only after step 1 has been used BSP’s own FAQ states the process “may take 55 to 65 days starting from the receipt of the complaint”
4. BSP adjudication BSP, for claims solely for payment or reimbursement of money RA 11765, Section 6(f): claims not exceeding ₱10,000,000, and the BSP may order the payment or reimbursement

Two honest limits on that ladder. The BSP gate is real: you cannot start at the BSP, and a complaint filed there before the institution has been given its chance will be sent back. And nothing in the rules above says your bank must refund you because you were deceived. What AFASA Section 6 does is split liability: an institution that complied with its obligations is not liable for loss from the offences, while a non-compliant institution is liable for restitution to account owners, and a conviction is not a prerequisite to that restitution. Whether your institution complied is a factual question about its fraud controls, not something you can read off the statute. Our guides on digital payment consumer rights and the Financial Products and Services Consumer Protection Act (RA 11765) set out the rights and the complaint route in detail, and we have provider-specific pages for GCash scam and phishing reports and Maya scam and phishing reports.

If the money left the peso rail altogether — if you were moved onto a crypto exchange or a wallet address, which the CICC describes as the “investor” profile — then the dispute mechanics above largely stop applying, and the relevant guide is our page on an investment or crypto scam and what the SEC can do.

Lane 2: the criminal case

This lane will not get your money back quickly, and it may not get it back at all. Open it anyway, for three reasons: it creates the official record your bank and the BSP will ask about, it is how the receiving accounts get identified, and it is the only route that reaches the people who did this.

File for estafa. The amount you lost decides the penalty bracket, and the brackets under RA 10951, Section 85, which amended Article 315, are worth seeing laid out, because their shape explains a lot about how these cases are handled.

Amount defrauded Penalty range under Article 315 as amended
₱40,000 or less Arresto mayor in its medium and maximum periods
Over ₱40,000 up to ₱1,200,000 Arresto mayor maximum to prisión correccional minimum
Over ₱1,200,000 up to ₱2,400,000 Prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods
Over ₱2,400,000 up to ₱4,400,000 Prisión correccional maximum to prisión mayor minimum
Above ₱4,400,000 One year is added for each additional ₱2,000,000, with the total not to exceed 20 years

Notice the second row. A victim who lost ₱50,000 and a victim who lost ₱1,100,000 fall in the same band. That is why consolidating complainants matters: if the same operation hit several people, a joint filing that establishes a far larger aggregate, and a syndicate, changes the character of the case in a way that no individual complaint can. Finding the other victims is therefore a concrete legal step, not merely solidarity.

Two further points on the criminal lane. First, RA 10175, Section 6 raises the penalty by one degree where ICT was used, but this does not apply itself — it has to be pleaded in the complaint, so say expressly that the deception was carried out through online messaging and calls. Second, RA 10175, Section 7 confirms that a prosecution under that Act is “without prejudice to any liability for violation” of other laws, so the estafa charge and the cybercrime charge are not alternatives.

Our guide to online estafa in the Philippines covers the elements and the filing in depth, the Cybercrime Prevention Act (RA 10175) guide covers the uplift and the warrants, and our online scam complaint procedure page walks through the filing itself, including the affidavit and the documents to bring.

Lane 3: when the scammer is a trafficking victim

This lane surprises people, and it is worth understanding before you decide what kind of report to make.

NBI-7 Agent III Maria Contesa Lastimoso, in a Philippine Information Agency report of 18 February 2026, described love scams as a form of “pig butchering” fraud, explaining that “scammers are very good at social engineering, where they give you the illusion that you are in an intimate or close relationship”, and that perpetrators examine a victim’s social media profile to assess financial capacity before building trust and asking for transfers to fintech accounts.

The people typing those messages are frequently not free agents. Where there are signs of that — the person says they cannot leave, describes quotas or punishment, appears to be reading from a script, or is plainly in a compound rather than the life they described — a second reporting route opens, and it is one Philippine victims rarely know about.

The Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking publishes that “[a] report may be made to the IACAT Anti-Trafficking Task Force or through the IACAT 1343 Action Line”, and that a report may also go to barangay authorities, the local social welfare and development office, the nearest police or other law enforcement agency, the Local Council for the Protection of Children, or any member of the Council or local anti-trafficking committee. The form does not matter: a report may be made “either orally, in writing or through other means”. IACAT is the body mandated to coordinate and monitor the implementation of RA 9208, with the Department of Justice as lead agency.

The 1343 Action Line Against Human Trafficking is, according to a Philippine Information Agency report of 12 June 2026 on a Commission on Filipinos Overseas advisory, available 24 hours a day, free of charge, with zero-rated international calls for overseas Filipinos, and reachable on Facebook at fb.com/1343Actionline.

Two things to be clear about. Reporting a possible trafficking situation does not substitute for your fraud complaint and does not reduce your claim — the money was still taken from you by deception, and the two reports go to different bodies for different purposes. And this guide states no section, element or penalty from RA 11862, the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, because its enrolled text could not be read from a verified government source this run; our page on RA 11862 covers the Act itself.

The “parcel held at Customs” variant

One version of this scam has an official answer so clean that it ends the conversation on the spot, and every Filipino with an online partner abroad should know it.

The pattern: the person you met online says they have sent you a gift, a package, money or valuables from abroad. Then someone claiming to be a Bureau of Customs officer contacts you to say the parcel is being held and that duties, taxes or processing fees must be paid — through a personal bank account, an e-wallet or a remittance centre. Sometimes the framing turns to threat: that you are in trouble with the Bureau, with legal action or arrest implied, and fake tracking details to back it up.

The Bureau of Customs publishes the following on its own site, and it is the sentence to remember:

“The Bureau of Customs is the sole authority in assessing duties, taxes, and other charges on all parcels. A parcel may only be paid or collected through Accredited Agent Banks (AAB), Postal Money Order (Postal Office), or directly to a BOC Cashier upon pick up or prior to its delivery.”

In a statement dated 18 July 2026, Customs Commissioner Ariel F. Nepomuceno addressed the same modus directly, saying of the practice that “Hindi ito bahagi ng anumang opisyal na proseso ng ahensya” — this is not part of any official agency process — and confirming that no authorised employee is permitted to collect payments through personal accounts or e-wallets. The Bureau’s advice was blunt: “Kung ang isang taong nakilala lamang online ay nagsasabing may ipinadalang regalo at may humihingi ng bayad para mailabas ito sa Customs, mag-ingat” — if someone you only know online says they sent a gift and someone is asking for payment to release it from Customs, be careful.

Put those together and you have a test that needs no legal knowledge at all. If the payment channel is an e-wallet, a remittance centre or someone’s personal account, it is not Customs. Not a corrupt Customs officer, not a shortcut, not a special arrangement — not Customs. You can verify a parcel claim with the Bureau directly at boc.cares@customs.gov.ph.

When it escalated to intimate images

The CICC describes one of the six profiles as the “seducer”, who obtains compromising photos. Where a romance scam turns into a threat to publish images, you are no longer only in a fraud situation, and the response changes: paying does not end it, and the demands typically continue.

Two routes matter here. RA 11313, the Safe Spaces Act, defines gender-based online sexual harassment in Section 12 to include, among other things, “uploading and sharing without the consent of the victim, any form of media that contains photos, voice, or video with sexual content, any unauthorized recording and sharing of any of the victim’s photos, videos, or any information online, impersonating identities of victims online or posting lies about victims to harm their reputation”. That provision is notable because it names online impersonation expressly, which few Philippine provisions do, and it covers both halves of a romance scam that ran on a stolen identity and ended in image-based abuse.

The practical handling of threats, takedowns and what to preserve is in our dedicated guide on sextortion in the Philippines and what victims should do. If the images or video calls you received were themselves synthetic — and the CICC says fraudsters now “conduct staged video calls using deepfake technology” — then our guides on remedies for sexual deepfakes and voice cloning, deepfakes and likeness rights and how to prove a deepfake is fake are the relevant reading.

What the government has actually published

Very few hard Philippine numbers on romance scams exist in official sources. The ones below come from a single Philippine Information Agency report dated 4 February 2026, carrying statements of CICC Undersecretary Aboy Paraiso. They are a government news report of an agency’s statements, not an issuance, and they should be read as what the agency said rather than as a measured dataset.

Figure What it refers to Why it matters to you
₱20.1 million Recovered by victims in 2025, as reported Recovery is not a myth. Money does come back, and the route it comes back through is the payment rail in Lane 1.
₱1.2 million Recovered in January 2026 alone, as reported The mechanism is still operating, not a one-off from a past year.
About 3 percent The share of scammed funds usually recovered, according to global anti-scam surveys cited in the same PIA report (not a Philippine figure) The realistic expectation. Plan on the complaint and the record, not on the refund.
123 complaints Formal love scam complaints received by hotline 1326 in 2025 A strikingly small number, which tells you the published figures describe reported cases only, not the scale of the harm.

That last row deserves a sentence of its own. One hundred and twenty-three formal complaints in a year, in a country of this size, is not a measure of how often romance scams happen. It is a measure of how rarely they are formally reported — which is consistent with what practitioners say about shame keeping victims silent. If you are weighing whether your case is “big enough” to report, that number is your answer: the system is not overwhelmed with cases like yours.

The CICC also urged “even attempted scam victims to report incidents to the 1326 hotline”. In other words, a report is appropriate even where no money was lost.

The six profiles the CICC named

The same 4 February 2026 report set out six recurring scammer personas. They are useful for a specific reason: each one implies a different money trail, and therefore a different first call.

Profile How the money is asked for Which lane to open first
The sad boy or sad girl Shares dramatic problems before requesting money Lane 1, the payment rail — these are usually direct wallet or bank transfers
The seducer Obtains compromising photos, then leverages them The intimate-images route above, alongside Lane 1
The investor Proposes joint cryptocurrency schemes The investment and crypto scam route, because the peso rail is left behind
The serviceman Poses as military personnel overseas, often with fees and parcels The Customs parcel test above, then Lane 1
The escort Demands upfront payment Lane 1, and read the sextortion guide before replying to any threat
The slow burner Cultivates a long-distance relationship for a long period before asking Lane 1, and expect multiple transactions across months rather than one

The report also noted a case in which a retired principal lost ₱2.5 million in retirement savings to a scammer, and that fraudsters “now use AI to create realistic fake photos, generate automated conversations, and conduct staged video calls using deepfake technology”. The practical implication of that last point is important: a video call is no longer proof that the person is real.

Evidence to preserve, and how

Do this before you block, delete or confront anybody. Blocking the account is the natural instinct and it destroys your own evidence, because a blocked conversation can become unreachable to you as well.

What to preserve Why it matters How to capture it
Transaction reference numbers This is the one item your bank cannot act without. It is also what identifies the receiving account. Export or screenshot the transaction record from your banking or wallet app, showing the reference, amount, date and time.
Receiving account name and number Establishes the mule-account argument under RA 12010, Section 4(a) Capture the confirmation screen that shows the recipient name exactly as the app displayed it.
The complete chat history Proves the false pretences, and proves they came before the money Use the app’s own export function where one exists; otherwise screenshot continuously without gaps, including dates.
The profile itself Identifies the account and may link your case to other victims Screenshot the profile, the URL or username, and any photos, before reporting it to the platform.
Call logs and voice notes Supports the ICT element that triggers the one-degree uplift Screenshot call logs with dates and durations; save voice notes as files rather than re-recording them.
Documents the person sent Fake IDs, tickets, invoices and customs notices are themselves evidence of the deception Keep the original files as received, not photographs of your screen.

Two rules about handling it. Keep the originals unaltered and work from copies, because an edited or cropped file invites a dispute about authenticity that you do not need. And do not crop out the parts that embarrass you — investigators and bank staff deal with this daily, and a conversation with gaps in it is weaker in exactly the places that matter. Our online scam evidence checklist sets out the capture method in full, and our scam and hack triage tool will route you to the right first step based on what happened.

Where to report it

These are the channels this guide was able to verify from government sources. Where a channel could not be verified, that is stated rather than filled in.

Body What it is for Published contact
Your bank or e-wallet Holding and tracing the funds. The only route with a real chance of recovery. The institution’s own published hotline or in-app support channel. Never a number sent to you.
CICC hotline 1326 Reporting the scam, including attempted scams where nothing was lost 1326, described in a PIA report as the centre’s hotline for scam complaints
PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group Criminal investigation of the fraud Hotline 09985988116, telephone +63 (02) 414-1560, email pnp.anticybercrimegroup@gmail.com, as published by the Bureau of Customs on its Online/Love Scam page
DOJ Office of Cybercrime Prosecution-side handling and coordination Telephone 526-2747 and 521-8345, email cybercrime@doj.gov.ph, as published on the same Bureau of Customs page
NBI Filing a complaint-affidavit and investigation Walk-in complaint intake at an NBI office. The NBI Citizen’s Charter records no fee for complaint intake and a processing time of 1 hour and 10 minutes.
IACAT and the 1343 Action Line Where the person on the other end appears to be trafficked or held against their will 1343, reported as available 24 hours, free, with zero-rated international calls, and fb.com/1343Actionline
Bureau of Customs Verifying any claim that a parcel is held or that fees are owed boc.cares@customs.gov.ph

Three disclosures about that table, because an unreliable contact detail is worse than none. The PNP-ACG and DOJ Office of Cybercrime details above are published by the Bureau of Customs, a government host, but the PNP-ACG’s own website did not serve a contact page when this guide was checked, so verify them before relying on them for a deadline. This guide publishes no PNP-ACG or NBI processing time for a romance scam case, because none is published. And the Anti-Money Laundering Council is not in the table: it published no readable victim-facing complaint or freeze-request route when checked, and a victim cannot ask it directly to freeze an account — that request runs through your bank.

Our guide to the CICC and what it handles explains the body behind hotline 1326, and the online scam complaint procedure page covers the filing mechanics, including the number of copies a complaint-affidavit needs.

What to do next

In order. The first row is the only one with a deadline measured in minutes, so do it before you read the rest of this section.

Step What to do When
1. Call the money Phone your bank or wallet on its published hotline. Say: “disputed transaction, I believe the receiving account is a money mule account.” Ask for a hold and a coordinated verification. Write down the case reference. Now, before anything else
2. Stop the bleeding Send no further money, including any “recovery fee”, “tax”, “unlocking fee” or payment to anyone offering to get your money back. Do not block the account yet. Immediately
3. Capture the evidence Work through the evidence table above: references, receiving account names, full chat export, profile, call logs, documents. Keep originals unaltered. Within the first day
4. Put the complaint in writing Submit a written complaint to the institution, not just a phone report, so the Appendix 115 clocks start running and you have a dated record. Within 1 to 2 days
5. File the criminal complaint Go to an NBI office or the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group with a complaint-affidavit and your evidence. Plead the ICT element expressly so the RA 10175 Section 6 uplift is on the record. DOJ practice requires five copies of a complaint-affidavit. Within the first week
6. Report the account and the scam Report the profile to the platform, and report the incident to CICC hotline 1326 — the CICC asks even attempted victims to report. Same week
7. Escalate if ignored If the institution does not resolve or communicate within the Appendix 115 periods, escalate to the BSP Consumer Assistance Mechanism, which expects the institution’s own channel to have been used first. After the institution’s deadlines lapse

If you are not sure which of these applies to your situation, our scam and hack triage tool asks a short series of questions and routes you to the right starting point. If your accounts themselves were compromised as part of this — if the person got into your email, your social media or your wallet — start instead with our guide on what to do first when you have been hacked.

Five worked scenarios

These are composites, built to show how the three lanes apply differently depending on what actually happened.

1. The emergency. Eight months of daily messages, then a medical emergency and ₱85,000 sent in four transfers over three weeks to three different account names. Lane 1 first, but note what the multiple account names give you: three separate receiving accounts, each arguably caught by RA 12010, Section 4(a). The loss sits in the ₱40,000 to ₱1,200,000 bracket under RA 10951. Because the last transfer was weeks ago, be realistic: the recovery window closed long before you called, and the value of the complaint now is the record and the account identification.

2. The parcel. A partner abroad says they have sent jewellery and cash; a “Customs officer” asks for ₱18,000 in release fees by GCash. Nothing has been sent yet. Do not pay, and do not treat the demand as negotiable. The Bureau of Customs publishes that parcel payments go only through Accredited Agent Banks, a Postal Money Order or a BOC Cashier — so the e-wallet request is conclusive on its own. Verify with boc.cares@customs.gov.ph and report under Lane 2. Nothing was lost, and the CICC still asks you to report it to 1326.

3. The crypto pivot. Four months of romance, then an introduction to a trading platform with impressive early withdrawals, then ₱600,000 in and a withdrawal that will not process. This is the CICC’s “investor” profile, and it matters that the early withdrawals worked — that money came from the scammers, and the recoverable transactions are the later ones. Once the money reached a crypto rail the bank dispute route narrows sharply; our page on an investment or crypto scam and the SEC is the governing guide.

4. The images. A relationship of six weeks, intimate video calls, then a demand for ₱40,000 and a threat to send the recordings to a contact list. No money has been sent. Paying does not end this, and the demands typically escalate. This is the sextortion route, not primarily a money-recovery problem: preserve everything, report to the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group, and read our sextortion guide before replying at all. RA 11313, Section 12 covers the non-consensual sharing of sexual media and the impersonation that often accompanies it.

5. The one who could not leave. A year of messages; the person eventually says they are being held in a compound, made to run accounts, and cannot stop. ₱250,000 has gone. Both things are true at once: you were defrauded, and they may be a trafficking victim. File your fraud complaint under Lane 2 and your bank dispute under Lane 1, and separately report the trafficking indicators to IACAT or the 1343 Action Line, which takes reports orally, in writing or by other means. One report does not weaken the other.

Common mistakes

  1. Writing the story before making the call. The detailed account can wait. The recovery window, as the CICC describes it, cannot.
  2. Blocking and deleting first. It feels like taking control and it removes your own evidence. Capture everything, then block.
  3. Paying a “recovery” fee. Anyone who contacts you offering to retrieve your money for a fee is running the second half of the same scam. No government body charges you to recover scammed funds.
  4. Starting at the BSP. The BSP Consumer Assistance Mechanism expects you to have used your institution’s own channel first. Filing there too early sends your complaint back and costs you weeks.
  5. Reporting only by phone. A phone call does not start the Appendix 115 clocks. Put the complaint in writing and keep the dated copy.
  6. Treating a video call as proof the person is real. The CICC says fraudsters now conduct staged video calls using deepfake technology.
  7. Leaving out the ICT element. The RA 10175 Section 6 one-degree uplift is not automatic. If the complaint does not say the deception ran through online messaging and calls, it is not in issue.
  8. Deciding the loss is too small or too embarrassing to report. Hotline 1326 received 123 formal love scam complaints in the whole of 2025. The system is not too busy for your case, and the CICC asks even attempted victims to report.

Frequently asked questions

Is a romance scam a crime in the Philippines?

Yes, although not under that name. There is no offence called “romance scam” or “love scam”. The conduct is prosecuted as estafa by false pretences under Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended by RA 10951, and because the deception was carried out online, RA 10175, Section 6 raises the penalty one degree where that element is pleaded. Depending on the facts, computer-related identity theft, the Safe Spaces Act or the money mule offence under RA 12010 may also apply.

Can I get my money back?

Sometimes, and speed is almost the whole story. The CICC reported that victims recovered ₱20.1 million in 2025 and ₱1.2 million in January 2026; the same report cites global anti-scam surveys finding that only about 3 percent of scammed funds are usually recovered. The route that recovers money is the payment rail: your bank or wallet holding and tracing the transfer. The criminal case does not recover money quickly. Where someone is convicted of an RA 12010 offence, such as money muling, the conviction carries civil liability that may include restitution to you (RA 12010, Section 17).

How fast do I have to act?

Immediately. A CICC official was reported as saying financial institutions can freeze accounts and potentially recover funds if notified within 30 minutes of a transfer. That is an operational statement rather than a rule, and no bank is under a published 30-minute duty, but it tells you the scale of the window. The statutory hold under RA 12010, Section 7 and BSP Circular No. 1215 runs up to 30 calendar days, but that governs how long funds stay held once a hold has actually been placed — it does not extend your window to call.

Does my bank have to refund me if I was tricked?

Not automatically, and no single statutory rule fixes it. RA 12010, Section 6 splits liability: an institution that complied with its obligations is not liable for loss from the offences, while a non-compliant institution is liable for restitution, and a conviction is not a prerequisite. The BSP’s Manual of Regulations also requires a product’s terms and conditions to state the procedures for reporting unauthorised transactions and the liabilities of the parties. So the answer turns on your institution’s controls and your contract, not on a blanket entitlement.

I authorised the transfer myself. Does AFASA still help me?

Possibly, but through the other end of the transaction. RA 12010 defines a social engineering scheme as deception resulting in unauthorised access and control over the victim’s financial account, and in a romance scam nobody took control of your account — you operated it. The stronger ground is Section 4(a), which makes it a prohibited act to receive or move proceeds known to derive from crime or social engineering. Romance scam money nearly always lands in a mule account, and that is an independent reason for a hold.

What are the warning signs before money is involved?

A Philippine Embassy advisory on romance scams lists pressure to advance the relationship rapidly, persistent excuses to avoid meeting in person, and requests for financial information or intimate photos, and gives one rule that covers most cases: “Never send funds to someone you have only communicated online.” NBI-7 adds that scammers examine a target’s social media profile to assess financial capacity before building trust. Because the CICC says staged video calls using deepfake technology now occur, a video call is no longer verification.

Someone says my parcel is held at Customs and I must pay a fee. Is that real?

No, if you are being asked to pay through an e-wallet, a remittance centre or a personal account. The Bureau of Customs publishes that it is the sole authority in assessing duties, taxes and other charges on parcels, and that a parcel may only be paid or collected through an Accredited Agent Bank, a Postal Money Order or directly to a BOC Cashier. The Bureau has stated that collection through personal accounts or e-wallets is not part of any official agency process. Verify any parcel claim at boc.cares@customs.gov.ph.

The person says they are being forced to scam people. What do I do?

Treat it as two separate matters. Your fraud complaint and your bank dispute proceed as normal — the money was taken from you by deception regardless of who typed the messages. Separately, you can report the trafficking indicators to the IACAT Anti-Trafficking Task Force or the 1343 Action Line, which accepts reports orally, in writing or through other means, and which is reported to be available 24 hours a day, free of charge, with zero-rated international calls. Reporting one does not weaken the other.

Is it worth reporting if I lost nothing, or only a small amount?

Yes. The CICC urged even attempted scam victims to report to hotline 1326, and the published numbers suggest why that matters: only 123 formal love scam complaints reached that hotline in the whole of 2025. Small and attempted cases are what identify the receiving accounts and link separate victims of the same operation. Where several people were hit by one operation, a consolidated filing establishes a much larger aggregate loss, which changes the penalty bracket under RA 10951 in a way no individual complaint can.

Verification log

Every load-bearing claim on this page, with the source it came from and what could not be confirmed. Claims that could not be verified were left off the page rather than softened.

Claim Source Status
Social engineering scheme requires unauthorised access and control RA 12010, Section 3, from the BSP booklet with IRRs Verified
Receiving proceeds of a social engineering scheme is a prohibited act RA 12010, Section 4(a) Verified
Compliant institution not liable; non-compliant liable for restitution RA 12010, Section 6 Verified
Hold on disputed funds not exceeding 30 calendar days RA 12010, Section 7, with Section 8 on coordinated verification Verified
Hold periods of 5, 25 and 30 calendar days BSP Circular No. 1215, s. 2025, under MB Resolution No. 523 of 22 May 2025 Verified
Complaint clocks of 2, 7, 9, 45 and 47 days from receipt BSP Manual of Regulations for Banks, Appendix 115 Re-read 4 October 2026. The appendix does not say banking or calendar days, so “banking days” was removed
BSP process may take 55 to 65 days; ₱10,000,000 adjudication ceiling BSP FAQ on Circular No. 1169; RA 11765, Section 6(f) Verified
Estafa brackets by amount defrauded RA 10951, Section 85, amending Article 315 Verified
One-degree uplift for ICT-committed offences RA 10175, Section 6; Section 7 on liability under other laws Verified
Data preservation of six months, extendable once RA 10175, Section 13 Verified
Safe Spaces Act definition covering non-consensual sexual media and impersonation RA 11313, Section 12 Verified
₱20.1 million and ₱1.2 million recovered; 3 percent recovery; 123 complaints; 30 minutes; six profiles; deepfake video calls PIA, 4 February 2026, reporting CICC Undersecretary Aboy Paraiso Re-read 4 October 2026 as a government news report, not an issuance. The 3 percent figure is attributed there to global anti-scam surveys, not to the CICC
Love scams as pig butchering; profiling financial capacity PIA, 18 February 2026, reporting NBI-7 Agent III Maria Contesa Lastimoso Verified as a government news report, not an issuance
BOC sole authority on parcel charges; payment only via AAB, Postal Money Order or BOC Cashier Bureau of Customs, Online/Love Scam page Verified
Collection through personal accounts or e-wallets is not an official BOC process Bureau of Customs statement of 18 July 2026, Commissioner Ariel F. Nepomuceno Verified
IACAT reporting route and the form of a report IACAT, reporting page Verified
1343 Action Line available 24 hours, free, internationally zero-rated PIA, 12 June 2026, reporting a Commission on Filipinos Overseas advisory Verified as a government news report, not an issuance
Romance scam red flags and the rule on never sending funds Philippine Embassy in Bangkok, Cybersecurity Advisory on Romance Scam, Ref. Advisory-BKPE-16-2023 Verified
PNP-ACG and DOJ Office of Cybercrime contact details Published on the Bureau of Customs Online/Love Scam page Verified on that host only. The PNP-ACG site served no contact page when checked.
A prescriptive period for estafa None Not verified. No period is stated on this page.
RA 11862 sections, elements or penalties None readable from a verified government source Not verified. None is stated on this page.
An AMLC victim-facing complaint or freeze-request route None published and readable Not verified. None is stated on this page.
The exact effectivity date of RA 12010 Section 26 sets effectivity fifteen days after publication; the publication line was not read Not verified. No date is stated on this page.
Philippine case law on romance scams None located Not verified. No case is cited on this page.
Processing times for a PNP-ACG or NBI romance scam case None published Not verified. None is stated on this page.
Total romance scam losses or victim counts in the Philippines No official dataset located Not verified. Only the figures the CICC reported are given.

Two items were deliberately left off this page. A telephone number for a Philippine National Police information-security unit appears on the 2023 embassy advisory cited above; it is not a victim complaint channel for fraud and would misroute a reader, so it is not published here. A PNP cybercrime reporting portal exists on a police subdomain, but the page could not be read when checked, so this guide does not describe what it does.

Official sources

Related Cybercode guides

About this guide

This guide was written by the Cybercode.ph Editorial Team from primary Philippine sources: the statutes and implementing rules themselves, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas circulars and manual provisions, Bureau of Customs publications, the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, a Department of Foreign Affairs post advisory, and Philippine Information Agency reports of agency statements, which are labelled as news reports rather than issuances wherever they are used. Where a figure, a contact detail or a provision could not be read from a government source, the verification log above says so and the claim is not made. No part of this guide has been reviewed by a lawyer.

Disclaimer: This is legal information, not legal advice. It does not create a lawyer-client relationship and it cannot account for the facts of your situation. Romance scam cases turn heavily on specifics — how the money moved, which institutions were involved, what was said and when. For advice on your own case, consult a Philippine lawyer or the Public Attorney’s Office, and for an urgent transaction, call your bank or e-wallet first.

Sources rechecked as of: October 4, 2026

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