Fraudulent calls trouble Bahrain

Manama: A phone call or message may change your life forever if you respond to them these days! The rising number of fraudulent phone calls and messages reported in Bahrain shows this.  

Authorities have warned the public to keep away from messages like “Congratulations You’re the BD1 Million Winner” and be aware of the calls aimed for recruitment in terrorist organisations.

A post went viral on local social media networks recently, warning of a telephone number that was seeking for recruiting new Bahrain-based members for Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organisation.

Besides, local news pages on Instagram and Twitter reported that several calls had been made from the mentioned number to citizens and residents recently.

“They ask questions and claim that they are conducting a survey. It’s a lie. Don’t respond to them. More information will be revealed about this soon,” online news sites said.

Many Bahrainis shared that they had been contacted by the same number or similar numbers (difference of one digit).

DT News called up a couple of the shared numbers, but they were out of reach. With the help of callers’ identification smartphone apps, one of the numbers was saved as an official authority’s number.

However, no official comments were available from the concerned authorities.

Beware of fraudsters: Batelco

Bahrain Telecomm-unication Company (Batelco) has issued a warning to its customers to be on the alert regarding a spate of fraudulent calls informing customers that they have won a large sum of money.

Batelco said “the calls are being generated from a variety of Bahrain and international mobile numbers,” adding that a number of Batelco’s customers have been in touch with the company to enquire about the veracity of the information.

“A number of our customers have received calls with the callers claiming to be Batelco management, and advising our customers that they have won a cash prize. Moreover, the callers are requesting personal information such as name, bank account details and CPR numbers to arrange payment of the money,” said Batelco’s Chief Marketing Officer
Mike Stanford.

“We strongly advise our customers that these are fraudulent calls. Batelco will never ask for bank account details, passwords or any personal details of this nature,” he stressed.

“Batelco has issued many previous warnings to customers regarding fraudulent calls, text messages and emails. Typically, these messages ask for information about customers’ usernames and passwords. But these recent messages try to attract people by the promise of a big cash prize. We advise anyone who receives such calls to either ignore them or report the incident to our 196 Helpdesk,” Stanford informed.

The company added that it always uses a professional process to contact its customers to inform them when they have won a prize and the customer would always be invited to Batelco’s Hamala Headquarters or a Batelco Retail Shop to collect any prize in person.