THE Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) based in the United Kingdom warned all newly arrived Filipino nurses about scams that have victimized returning health workers.
The warning was sent by the nurses group the other day through their Facebook account, saying that there has been an increase in financial scams targeting newly arrived Filipino nurses from UK with one internationally trained nurse scammed by someone claiming to be from the Inland Revenue.
The scammer was very sophisticated and knew a lot about the nurse including her passing the OSCE (objective strategic clinical examination) recently and registration with the NMC (as an overseas trained nurse.
The scammers directed the unsuspecting nurse to an official looking website where she was asked to log-in and enter her other details. The unsuspecting nurse was then asked to pay £900 with the penalty being doubled if the amount was not paid and settled within 24-hours.
Another scam uses a SMS text message to individual users advising them of a HMRC Tax refund. The fraudsters alleging to be from HMRC sends text messages to the unsuspecting members of the public informing them of tax refunds or unclaimed rebates. Messages will usually contain official looking links that ask for further information.
HMRC has released a statement informing customers that their office will never contact customers by text or email if they are due a tax refund. Much more, they will also never ask for your bank account details or any personal information by email or text. Do not respond or do not click on any links contained in the message, nurses were advised.
PNA-UK would like to warn its members and the general public to be aware of this financial scam. More particularly, newly arrived Filipino nurses and those who came to the UK within last year.
Meanwhile, Filipino nurses has renewed its appeal to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to speed up the accreditation of new job orders for nurses to enable them to catch up with the new deadline set up by the POEA September 30, 2020 .
Many of the nurses have visas expiring by the year’s end and the slow release of new job orders from the POEA is slowing down their timeline for deployment to their hospitals mostly in the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom National Health System Trusts has increased the budget for overseas recruitment by 20 million pounds or almost 25 million dollars to recruit overseas nurses in view of the number of local nurses retirement.
Willy M. Balasa
