Muscat: Citizens and residents in the sultanate have been urged to be careful while sharing personal data, especially bank details, on phone.
Despite the extensive awareness campaigns carried out by the law reinforcement agencies, the issues of electronic fraud continues to be reported in Oman.
The latest issue of Society and Law states that in once case, two Asian expatriates contacted a victim by telephone and claimed they are working for one of the telecom companies. The victim was informed that he had won a cash prize of RO20,000 and some personal details were needed for verification before handing over the amount.
The victim, unaware that he would be the victim of a money fraud, fake news and shared the information, which included the civil ID number, name of his bank and the mobile banking app.
They asked him to give with the bank account and bank card details, which were needed to transfer the prize money to his account.
In the process, the accused managed to use all his banking details and withdraw of RO 5,000, which was transferred to some other account.
The victim was surprised when received text messages about the money withdrawal instead of a message on the prize money deposit. As he was not able to contact the accused phone on phone, the victim realized of the fraud.
The victim submitted a complaint to the corned authorities and also closed the bank account to avoid any further transfer of money.
During investigations, although details were traced from the telecom companies, it was found out that the accused ( of an Asian nationality) had left Oman after committing such crimes over a period.
The bank account to which the money was transferred was owned by another person of the same nationality, who had left Oman before the offense was committed.
Recently, Royal Oman Police (ROP) arrested 10 expats for online money fraud. ROP said the accused posing as bank officials told victims that their bank and credit cards will be blocked if they did not open a link in the e-mail sent to them. The police urged people to ignore all messages and calls requesting bank details. They also urged caution on messages announcing cash prizes.
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