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The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is warning the public against people who are pretending to be their employees.
As it turns out, these scammers utter the standard spiel, “Taga-census po ako (I am here for the census),” to gain the trust of unsuspecting homeowners.
There are two types of scammers:
1. Those who are there to take note of who lives in the house and if there are people there at certain times of the day. Later on, they, perhaps with more of their cohorts, will schedule a robbery.
2. Those who are actually there to sell overpriced products. In an ABS-CBN News report, a homeowner, who identified only as “Rebecca,” related that she made the mistake of letting in a scammer. The man later claimed that he also had ties to the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and started to pressure Rebecca into buying a new hose for her liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank.
When in doubt, call the PSA to verify the identities of the so-called census-taker. Don’t trust IDs presented, as those could easily be faked, too. (from an Umagang Kay Ganda report)
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