Caller ID spoofing is fraudsters’ latest tool to prey upon victims

Spoofing software is fuelling the ammunition stocks of fraudsters to target their victims, it is learned. Sources say many fraudsters are using this software and apps to call their victims in the disguise of ministry officials or media personnel and demanding money by threatening them.

Caller ID spoofing is the practice of causing the telephone network to indicate to the receiver of a call that the originator of the call is a station other than the true originating station. A Manama resident yesterday received a call from a fraudster, who claimed to be calling from The Daily Tribune office.

The resident, who works as a finance manager at a leading firm here, said that he was earlier contacted by same fraudsters, who then said they work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education. In this case, the fraud played by the perpetrators involves luring their victims to pay for an online MBA programme and later harassing the victims for ‘processing and attestation fees’. And, apparently, the fraudsters use call spoofing software to trick their victims.

“The fraudsters used spoofing techniques to call from the official Ministry of Foreign affairs and the Ministry of Education phone numbers a few months ago. “Similarly they called me today from the official Tribune number to threaten me. He claimed to be a reporter and said that he would publish an article about how I had obtained an invalid degree.

“I told them repeatedly that I had discarded the degree after finding that it wasn’t a legitimate one. But they keep on harassing me, asking for processing fee. “I joined the MBA programme a few years ago believing it to be legitimate. I paid around BD 400 for the degree and I got a certificate for it."

“They called me after a few months said that I needed to pay another BD1,000 for attestation purposes. When I refused to pay the harassment began.” Tribune recently reported about hundreds of students from the Kingdom being cheated by a fake degree racket based in Pakistan. Axact, a software company based in Karachi, has been allegedly targeting students in the Kingdom.