Scammers get personal with your details in phone con
▶ Fraudster posing as du worker had teacher’s ID and passport numbers
Con men calling people to tell them they have won large cash prizes have raised their game – and it nearly cost one resident Dh65,000.
British teacher Karl Marsden received a call from someone claiming to work for du to say he had won Dh200,000.
Mr Marsden was sceptical but the caller was able to give the teacher’s personal details including his Emirates ID, passport and the last dialled number from his mobile phone.
“Then he said, ‘I’ll prove I work for du. I’ll put you on the diamond plan’,” said Mr Marsden, who lives in Dubai. “I said, ‘What’s the diamond plan?’”
The man did not answer but proceeded to sign him up to the du diamond plan, which comes with a Dh2,500 cancellation charge and Dh2,500 for each month. That added up to Dh65,000 in Mr Marsden’s case because it was applied to his two du mobile accounts.
The man then asked him for his three-digit security code on the back of his credit card.
“At that point I hung up,” Mr Marsden said. “I had heard about this scam and I thought this was ridiculous but the fact that he had all my details was frightening.”
The latest mobile phone scam follows a warning issued by Dubai Police in June that urged residents to be vigilant about phone scams after a rise in the number of cases in which people lost “hundreds of thousands of dirhams”.
Police said 33 fraudsters had been arrested in the previous two months for tricking people into transferring money they believed they had won.
In one case, 19 Asian men were arrested in a raid by police in early June. They were accused of repeatedly calling residents promising cash rewards.
Mr Marsden reported the scam to du the same day he was almost conned.
“I went down to a du store and lodged a complaint,” he said. “This lady came over and took photographs of my text messages.
“She said, ‘We have had a falling out with a company and they have taken all our data and they are using it’.
“But why would a hack do that? Why would he put me on the diamond plan?”
The du employee did not give Mr Marsden a complaint number but told him not to worry. She assured him that they were aware of the scam and the cancellation charges for the two diamond plans would be waived.
After not hearing anything for two weeks, Mr Marsden visited another du outlet for an update on the case.
“Another guy opened a file case in Mall of the Emirates and he said, ‘Don’t worry, it will all be sorted out’. So I went back to England and then I got this Dh65,000 bill to cancel the diamond plan in the summer.”
Mr Marsden lodged complaints with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority about the case and was told by the department that he would not be charged the cancellation fee for the diamond plans.
Until this week, four months on, the charge remained on his account. But after being contacted by The National about the case, du got in touch with Mr Marsden yesterday to confirm that the charges would now be cancelled.
Du said Mr Marsden was signed up to the diamond plan “as a result of communication between the customer and a third party”. The company said he reported the matter on July 3, rather than on June 20 as Mr Marsden claimed.
“We have settled upon a mutually amicable resolution. Both numbers belonging to the customer will be reactivated in due course,” du said.
Mr Marsden is relieved but said it should never have gone on so long.
“Du didn’t handle it appropriately,” he said.
“They should have said, ‘sorry, this shouldn’t have happened’. I have been a customer with du for six years.”
The telecoms company advised customers to report suspicious offers or promotions directly to du or the police.