Google to change BPO partner after scam involving Bitcoin

As a Filipino, I'm honestly embarrassed. Three employees from Sykes Cebu managed to steal $60 million in Google gift cards and turned them into Bitcoin. Because of this, Sykes is gonna lose Google as a client since they're switching to a different vendor. Now that Bitcoin is back in the headlines due to this scam, I can already see some Filipinos jumping in to tell everyone to steer clear of Bitcoin or spreading negativity about it everywhere. I'm expecting Facebook and Twitter to be flooded with posts about "Bitcoin scams" after this latest incident. I wouldn’t be surprised if those three employees are living it up rich right now, but it hasn’t been mentioned if their Bitcoins have been taken by the authorities yet.

When Twitter accounts was hacked, many media outlets directed criticism of bitcoin, but after a while they were able to track where the currencies were sold, so using btc does not mean that they are safe, and no one will be able to know where they have transferred this money. Do not worry about such news, we have become stronger than its impact, and BTC can be used for good and bad things.

It always depend on how the news is relayed to the people, if we have the media not pointing particularly Bitcoin being the problem here and focusing more on the crime that happened this won't influence anyone about Bitcoin being some kind of dark web money. If we will be more present in the general public the news like "Scammers Stole 1,000 VISA credit cards" will just be normal to them for Bitcoin. No they aren't rich they committed a crime, they obtained the Bitcoin with fraud so even if there were no reports of any seizing that would happen this would just mean that they are still in trouble with the law. The company already confirmed that they have these 3 employees who have scammed people internationally so I doubt they can escape with that as this company will have employee records of these guys.

I think it's more of a lost to Sykes and not bitcoin in general. Well once you are misinformed, it's hard to chance your mind isn't it. But again, Philippines is one country is Asia which understand bitcoin, so I don't think this will be a big issue. How can you call them rich when they are criminal? And they are caught isn't it, so I'm sure the authorities are going to get back that bitcoins.

It may not be easier to get them now on a country like Phillipines because basically it is a country combined thousands of Islands and also the laws and administration might be differ, correct me if I am wrong.When you got the money then you can bribe anyone to hide your identity and live as someone else for sure.

I was just talking to my wife about this news as she used to work on BPO as well. And myself have some interactions with some employee in the Cebu area way back about IT related works so I was quite suprised that this wall pulled by some Cebuanos. But this won't affect bitcoin though, this could probably in the news for sometime specially in Facebook and yeah it could affect the image of bitcoin again for Filipinos. But I doubt that the whole country will learn their lessons here, Filipinos easily forget this kind of negative press. And for Filipino crypto enthusiasts, they don't care about this news. They will just continue and go on with their lives and still be on the bitcoin bandwagon.

But they have been identified isn't it? So how it is hard for the government to track them down? Bribe who? And the money that they have stolen couldn't even last them for years specially if they keep on bribing people around them. And besides, Sykes won't go into public if they don't have the employees in their hands.

You have nothing to be ashamed of, other people have done it, and apart from the fact that you are of the same nationality, it is certain that you do not share the same moral values. Such things happen all over the world, the only question is how which company reacts, because some are powerful enough to keep everything secret and avoid negative publicity. After reading the article, I got the impression that this is not the first time that the employees of this company have been caught with their fingers in the jam, and that after the whole thing was discovered, about 300 employees were fired, although the company claims that they were only relocated. Although it is impossible to hire only honest people, I still think that the company has failed in security checks and internal supervision. If something does not change, similar things will surely happen again in the future. Bitcoin is as always a collateral victim, but we should never blame the tools, but the people who manage them.

They identified the persons I guess that is why they said 3 employees, as I said it is made up of Islands so it is hard to keep all the places under surveillance and also it is easy to escape to neighboring countries too easily.60Million is not a small amount and even whole life may not be enough to spend them on developing countries.

Yes agree with this, not just bitcoin anyway that can be used for good and bad things i mean anything can be used for good and bad things.so yes we have become stronger than its impact. and yes people trying use bitcoin because it can be mixing so untracable

Skyes' said "a small number of employees" so it could be more than three ppl. They're actually very vague, must be trying to control the damage which doesn't help. I prefer to see how they held people accountable and that they will improve their countermeasures to prevent the same thing from happening again. Also, I wouldn't worry much. When we had the news about the couple scamming almost 1 billion php in btc, the opinions I've seen from the locals were mostly about the scammers and their scheme, not about bitcoin being a scam. and it never really hindered bitcoin's development in the country seeing how we are at now. No it doesn't, it can only make it harder to trace.

I'm under the impression that if they have identified the culprit then definitely they could arrest him? And maybe the company has done it's investigations on the side that the employees might not be aware that they have been under the companies radar. And they are going to be arrested as soon as they enter the premises? And as per this posts https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/333783/bpo-firm-action-taken-on-workers-involve-in- So are you saying that they let this employees in the loose with all that money? and let them escape to other neighboring countries?

The article doesn't say anything about how exactly they pulled this off. Being a Google BPO, I guess they would have had access to a lot of information related to the Google gift cards on store. These gift cards are supposed to be bought offline and then used as store credit. What i know about card scams and BPOs is that scammers from India have had full time operations where they entice people to buy these gift cards and send it to them as payment for some fake "computer alert". Its all pretty deeply entrenched and the famous youtuber Jim Browning does great work dismantling them. What is surprising is that these scammers continue to pull millions from unsuspecting elderly people in the west, UK etc. In the case of the Filipino BPO, Did the employees just get the code information from some server and turned them to BTC or did they fleece customers?

I'm actually a bit surprised of google's reaction, they dropped Sykes but only in the Philippines, not in other countries, do they assume that only that part of the company is at fault? And I don't get why people get so triggered when bitcoin is mentioned in a bad way, it was used by the thief and that's all it's reality if they would have converted into gold would you all start defending gold? As always learn to deal with it, one use the coin in a bad way one uses it in a good way, bad things happen, no need to act like BTC is the Virgin Mary. Seriously, this cultist way of self-victimization is so yesterday. Yeah, one guy from Microsoft manager to steal more than all these alone A former Microsoft engineer stole more than $10 million from the company

why would you feel ashamed? theses people have nothing to do with you, or you being a Filipino. don't bring yourself down because a scumbag stole money from someone even if they are a Filipino. I've grown tired of what other fellow Filipino think(who mostly have no idea what bitcoin is) about bitcoin. these negative image may affect the adoption rate of bitcoin in the Philippines but it won't as long as there are people curious and interested in it.

I guess Filipinos aren't too dumb to just crucify Bitcoin for this incident immediately. Of course with a proper arrangements of incidents in a news outlet or an online article is correct, these won't spread any misinformation regarding Bitcoin. Infact, some people are already aware of the fact that ponzi schemes in PH are using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency to encourage their target victims to invest. This will be a direct hit to the Sykes enterprise, not with Bitcoin. I'm not gonna be surprised If Google will suspend their outsourced call on all of the Sykes locations for the meantime. Nevertheless, this is a shameful news to all the folks who are working in the BPO industry in the PH (I for once was in that industry before but not with Sykes.) considering that there were already a strong discrimination in this industry. They're not getting away with this, and that's for sure.

At which part of the news they said that the employees involved in the scam are running away and are now fugitives in the country? Because from what I understand in the news they are just dismissed by the company but they have yet to file criminal charges against them since the complainants should be the ones that got scammed by them and not by the company they are working for. Maybe they are just waiting for people or a group of people to come and front and file an official complaint against them before any proper procedures should begin. But they aren't running away and since a scam/fraud is involve they might have been detained in a prison cell.

Please correct your post, it's not $60 million but Php 60 million which is equivalent to $1.2 million. Yes, I feel ashamed too, because of what they did, a lot of people working for the company loses the job, and that would not only affect the reputation of the company but the filipinos itself as an employee. This statement from the news - https://rappler.com/technology/google-switch-bpo-partner-following-online-scam I wonder why it's not detected by google if they have a good internal control or auditing system.

It's because the Google gift cards are legit that's why it couldn't be detected right away. So these employee really knows what they are doing and didn't stop until they've got caught, and it's a no refund policy as well. As for all the Filipinos, there's nothing to be ashamed off, and I don't think that bitcoin will be affected as well in the Philippines, it's been a safe haven for bitcoin already.

If the bitcoins that they've converted were in seized, it is possible that those can be returned and converted back in cash or any form of value to google. This can retain the losses at least or if there's a remaining amount that was lost. They have to let these three involved people pay. Do we have an update on what happened to the three employees that did this fraudulent activity? Like your concern about the reputation of bitcoin, those none bitcoiners will have another negative say about bitcoin.