Expatriates are claiming to have fallen victim to a mobile phone scam, losing thousands of riyals. The scam, they say, was a fake SIM card lottery promising a potential SR200,000 in cash prizes.
Mobile scamsters usually target low-income expatriates and try to get hold of their bank details and iqama numbers.
Ashok Jha, a Nepalese worker living in the Kingdom, says he was deceived into transferring pre-paid phone credit worth SR900.
“I was told not to tell anyone about the lottery and that my SIM card would be locked if I did,” says Jha.
“The caller sounded very convincing at the beginning, but I became suspicious after I had paid for recharge pin numbers worth SR900. I then confronted the caller. He hung up at once and I lost my money.”
Subscribers are deceived into transferring mobile phone credit to participate in fake lotteries and often give away their bank accounts and other confidential details. Conmen usually claim they are calling from a Gulf country.
They then go on to hoodwink the customer into winning a draw after enquiring about their nationality. Conmen win over the trust of clients by reading out their exact SIM card serial number.
“My husband fell prey to such a call just last month,” says Celia Damien, a Filipino nurse at a reputed hospital in the Kingdom. “The caller said that my husband won SR200,000 in a SAWA lucky draw. He had called from mobile number 0533915561.
He then gave a coupon number and a lottery number, requesting my husband to purchase a SR1,200 SAWA recharge card, and read out the pin to him so he can give a check number, promising to call back.”
Damien added that they became suspicious because they didn’t have to purchase any card for recharge to win a draw and they had not received any official message from STC. “We also verified this on the Internet and spoke to Al-Rajhi bank. We then came to the conclusion that it was a scam.”
Mobile users are cautioned against falling prey to such scams and revealing any personal information to unknown callers and are advised to authenticate any claim by calling the company straight away.
The STC recently sent out a text message to its subscribers warning them of such fraudulent calls and admonishing their methods of stealing money.
Nawaf Bin Saad Al Shalani, general manager of corporate communication at STC, said in a statement last year that customers should not respond to these callers and that they should not reveal their personal information through phone calls or text messages, he said.
