Now phone scammers pose as immigration officials

Manama : Bahrain residents are being targeted by fraudsters who pretend to be immigration officials, it has emerged.

A Sanabis resident, got a call yesterday afternoon from a scammer who claimed that he was calling from the immigration office to warn her about the fines that she need to pay. According to her, the caller threatened her by claiming that she would be jailed if she did not comply with his demands. The victim said that an official immigration office number showed up on her caller ID when they called.

“They tricked me initially because the number they called from was an official immigration office number. They asked me to go to the official evisa website and check the number on the website. I found that the number there was the same as the one they were calling from,” said Smitha Shaiju.

She said that she received the call late in the afternoon. “They sounded western in the way they spoke and the call was made late in the afternoon. We never receive official calls so late in the afternoon so we were suspicious even though the caller ID showed the official number,” she added. 

“Later they mentioned that they could see a criminal record on my file. They said I would be prosecuted for these violations if I did not pay the fines. However, what they said did not make any sense. I have never been involved in any crimes. Yet they kept threatening me, they said that a person would visit my house and that I would have to pay him the fine,” she added. 

She said has no clue on how they got her number. “I do not know how they got my number or how they came to know that I am an expatriate. I knew something was wrong about the call and I passed the phone to my husband. He told them that he would file a police case if they do not stop harassing us and hung up, they did not call back.” 

According to a source, the caller ID on the victims phone showed up as the official number because the fraudsters might have used a software to spoof caller ID. “Various softwares are available to spoof one’s caller ID. Software and applications including Skype, can be used to spoof phone numbers. It is widely available and easily obtainable,” the source said. 

Last year DT News reported a similar incident where an expatriate man was threatened by fraudsters who called under the guise of an immigration official.