Dubai: Fraudsters who call people on phone announcing cash prizes should be reported to police, a senior officer said.
Brigadier Ahmad Bin Galita, director of Al Rafaa police station, said that phone-prize scammers are using new ways to deceive more victims by posing as officials of banks or famous retailers to extract personal details of the victims and transfer sums of money abroad from their bank accounts.
The warning came after an Asian man was bilked of Dh400,000 after his daughter was conned by scammers and she provided them with her father’s banking details.
“The man and his daughter filed a case at the police station. The girl received a call from an unknown person who claimed that he was from a local bank and told her that she had won Dh100,000. He made her reveal the details of her father’s bank account and days later, Dh400,000 was withdrawn from the account,” Brig Bin Galita said.
The girl told police that the scammer asked for her father’s account number and security code to deposit the money in the account. The next day, he asked her to send copies of her and her father’s Emirates ID cards via WhatsApp.
“After she sent the copies, the money was withdrawn from the father’s account,” he added.
“Their latest style is to pose as an employee of a bank or famous retailer or brand and ask for the bank details to deposit the money. They call random numbers in the UAE and make the victims believe that they have won prizes,” Brig Bin Galita said.
People still believe that they can get rich quickly and fraudsters play on this credulousness, he added.
In a second incident, an Arab national received a message on WhatsApp, telling him that he had won Dh200,000 in a shopping centre raffle draw in coordination with a local bank.
“He received a phone call later from an unknown person asking for his bank details and password to deposit the money but they withdrew his money instead. He froze his account and lodged a case with the police,” Brigadier Bin Galita said.
