The Philippines' Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) has warned Filipinos against a range of scams — including love scams, investment fraud and the emerging QR code (Quick Response) scam — that could become more prevalent as the holiday season approaches.

The timing is significant: Philippine law requires employers to give workers 13th-month pay, a year-end payout that typically lands in the run-up to Christmas.

"During the Christmas season, that's the time when the money or bonuses come in, so expect that you'll receive a lot of offers," Robert S. Paguia, division chief and data protection officer of the CICC, said in an interview on the sidelines of IDfy Philippines' graphic novel launch on Thursday.

Scammers often disguise fraudulent schemes as legitimate job or investment opportunities, or prey on people's emotions to extract money from their victims, Mr. Paguia said.

He also highlighted quishing — a term blending "QR code" and "phishing" — an emerging form of cybercrime that uses malicious QR codes to deceive victims. These codes may direct people to fake websites, steal their personal information or trick them into making fraudulent payments.

Scammers may distribute or post malicious QR codes through e-mails, text messages and public posters, according to Mr. Paguia, who warned that they may also replace QR codes displayed by legitimate brick-and-mortar merchants with fraudulent ones. Because the destinations embedded in QR codes are not readable by the human eye, such swaps are difficult to detect visually.

"So we really have to be careful when scanning QR codes," he said, urging consumers to verify the validity of transactions with merchants before finalizing payments.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) likewise warned the public about quishing in July after receiving several reports of the scam. However, it reported that online scam cases declined by nearly half to 510 as of June, from 1,060 incidents during the same period last year. Those midyear figures offer a baseline for the closing months of the year, a stretch authorities have flagged for heightened scam activity.

Mr. Paguia said scammers are difficult to apprehend because their operations are organized and multinational, allowing them to move from one country to another.

"That's how fast these cybercriminals work. They don't leave footprints behind, or digital footprints, as we call them," he said.

He added that scam hubs in the Philippines are usually operated by foreigners, often Chinese nationals, while the scams are frequently carried out by people from African countries and some Filipinos, whom he described as victims themselves.

Echoing the advice of Scam Watch Pilipinas, Mr. Paguia urged Filipinos to remain vigilant, keep their personal information private and verify the legitimacy of transactions to avoid falling victim to quishing and other forms of scams ahead of the holiday season. Victims are encouraged to report incidents by calling the CICC's 24/7 hotline at 1326 or e-mailing report.cicc.gov.ph.

Meanwhile, Raghuraman Chandrasekhar, country head of IDfy Philippines, a trust technology company, warned of an increase in both the number and variety of scams as perpetrators increasingly leverage artificial intelligence (AI).

"The number of scams has increased, and the different varieties of scams have increased," he told reporters during the launch of IDfy Philippines' Chaos in Cavite, an investigative graphic novel that seeks to educate Filipinos about money mule networks and digital fraud.

"Probably one of the biggest elements on the front is how crime syndicates are also using AI to build different kinds of scams," Mr. Chandrasekhar added.

According to a joint white paper released by IDfy and CIBI Information, Inc., the Philippines risks losing up to P603 billion annually to scams involving mule accounts — an amount equivalent to nearly 3% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), the report said. Mule accounts — accounts used to receive and forward money on behalf of others, often under the names of recruited or unwitting holders — let scam proceeds pass through layers of accounts that obscure the trail back to the perpetrators.

Mr. Chandrasekhar said IDfy Philippines provides identity verification and fraud-prevention technologies to help businesses detect suspicious transactions and prevent identity theft. One of its solutions involves conducting live facial verification for flagged transactions to determine whether the person using an account matches the enrolled customer, helping curb the use of money mule accounts.

The company also offers digital onboarding and authentication services to help businesses verify customers and streamline account applications, he said.

IDfy Philippines works with more than 10 organizations in the country, including some of the country's leading banks and motorcycle ride-hailing platform Angkas. The adoption of such tools by banks and consumer platforms reflects how identity verification is becoming a frontline defense as syndicates lean on AI to scale their schemes.

— Edg Adrian A. Eva