The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) has sent SMS statements to consumers urging them to protect themselves in light of numerous reports of bank account theft and credit card fraud.
“For your own safety, please protect your credit card and report the loss of the card immediately to your bank,” the SMS statement said.
Among the latest case of bank account theft publicized in the media this week is the loss of SR200,000 in two days from a Saudi man’s bank accounts in Yanbu.
“The SMS bank notification service was disabled and my phone number changed in the system,” A. Al-Juhani said. “I was trying to log in using my username but for two days the service was disconnected. I grew suspicious and visited the bank to find that the huge amount was missing from my two accounts.”
Al-Juhani alleged he received no assistance from the bank in settling his losses and stated he plans to file a lawsuit to recoup his losses.
The problem of credit card and bank account fraud is not new. In 2009, Arab News reported on complaints from Saudi consumers who were swindled by fraudsters outside the Kingdom, while their credit cards were still in their possession.
“I was staying in a five-star hotel in Makkah a few months ago and decided to check my account status online when I returned to Riyadh,” said Moulana, an employee at a government hospital. “That was when I noticed there were 12 charges to my NCB Visa card amounting to SR8,026.”
Moulana also said that he received little help in rectifying the fraudulent charges. In spite of his daily calls to get assistance from National Commercial Bank’s customer service hotline, the bank has been adding on delinquent fees for not paying the minimum payment on his credit card each month.
“I think now since they keep adding on late charges I owe over SR9,000 on my credit card bill,” he said. “Also I am very upset with the bank. Why didn’t they notice that there were charges in Makkah and the following day multiple charges made to the card in Paris and then immediately more charges in Hong Kong.”
Moulana also said that a doctor who works with him at the same government hospital also stayed in the same hotel located minutes from the Masjid Al-Haram about a month later and came back to Riyadh. A week later he said that SR10,000 worth of fraudulent charges on his credit card appeared from London.
Moulana said he contacted a close friend who is a senior manager at one of the foreign banks in the Kingdom for advice and was told that he too, had been incorrectly charged for two hefty sums spent outside the Kingdom.
“My friend told me the best course of action is to wait and see the outcome of the investigation . . . and hope for the best,” he said.
To get more perspective into why Saudis have become such prime targets of credit card fraud over the past few years, Arab News contacted US-based First Data International, a leader in electronic commerce and payment solutions for businesses worldwide.
First Data signed a contract with SAMBA Financial Group in May 2007 to handle its credit card processing portfolio, provide risk management, and fraud and behavioral scoring tools.
“Credit card fraud is a significant issue for the banking industry and consumers today,” said Brian Quarrie, former managing director of First Data in the Middle East. “There is no fool-proof measure to thwart fraud.”
He said the most common method, called “skimming,” involves obtaining sensitive data about the card at the point the cardholder is making a legitimate transaction.
“An example of this could be at an ATM machine, where criminals attach a small device in or in front of the card reader slot, which reads and stores the magnetic strip on the card,” said Quarrie.
“The fraudster will also wish to capture the PIN number associated with that card and generally this is achieved by attaching a small hidden camera somewhere on the ATM that is focused on the PIN-pad of the ATM. Sometimes these devices even use Bluetooth technology that can immediately send the magnetic strip information and the image from the camera to waiting fraudsters,” he said.
Quarrie advised consumers to always keep an eye on their cards and never let a shop assistant or cashier take the card out of their sight, even for a few seconds.
“Consumers should be protecting their card information in the same way that they would protect other property that is of value to them,” he said.
