Victims of online banking scams in Bahrain ‘hardly get their money back’ amid rising number of online heists

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

No one knows what to do now!

It seems the fraudsters targeting the online banking and financial transaction networks in Bahrain are on a rampage; scores continue to lose money from their bank accounts daily.

The victims say banks and money wallet applications are not owning up the responsibility to safeguard their online accounts while attempting to engage in a blame game.

And most interestingly, among those who lost money is an IT manager of a financial institution.

The Daily Tribune office has, until now, received tens of calls from the victims, who are at sea after losing bucks from their accounts.

The hackers have also managed to steal from the accounts of many companies and organisations.

It is high time the authorities take serious steps to contain the fraudsters and their seemingly vast networks spreading worldwide.

Speaking to The Daily Tribune, Ajeesh P K, a resident in Bahrain, who and his employer lost BD4,500 to scammers, said he has yet to come to terms with the “nightmare”.

“What has happened is hard to believe.

One fine day I woke up to see that BD860 was robbed from my account through ten online transactions, mainly of BD99 and lesser amounts.

I also saw two missed calls from a WhatsApp number not in my contacts.

“I could also see that 100 fils had been transferred to my account using an online payment app carrying the same number, from which the stranger had made WhatsApp calls. I suspect him to have hacked my account and stolen money and have filed a complaint against him with the local police.

“On the same day, I visited my bank branch to block my account. Suddenly, my employer called me, saying BD310 had been robbed from the company account.

Since my account and company account were with the same bank, I asked the branch manager to block both of them.

“As the process to block the account was ongoing, the robber struck once again.

Twenty-five transactions of BD99 were carried out by the robber, leaving the bank officials clueless as to what to do next.

Subsequently, both accounts have been blocked and are not being used now for any transactions.”

Ajeesh said he has filed a complaint with Sitra Police and the CID Department but is unsure about getting the robbed money back, which is the case with most of the victims, who contacted The Daily Tribune.

Staff at all commercial banks across Bahrain now find it challenging to handle the rising number of complaints from customers after fraudulent online money transfers. “It’s not easy to handle the increasing number of complaints, and we feel embarrassed to face our customers as we don’t have genuine answers to deal with them,” a bank official told The Daily Tribune.

Banks, money wallet apps should take more responsibility

On the other hand, an IT professional and cybersecurity expert said the Financial Institutions should collectively form a unit to tackle these online scammers. “In many developed countries, most banks and digital wallets compensate the customers for the lost amounts to scammers. And they have earmarked millions in this regard.

In Bahrain also, I expect the banks to take more responsibility and at least share the risk along with the customers.” “I don’t understand how money is stolen even after deactivating many accounts. The disease has progressed, and no treatment seems to be working now.”

Hacking or buying accounts!

He said he had discussed the issue with many top bank officials. “What I could learn is that the scammers are either hacking the bank accounts or ‘buying accounts from expatriates who are leaving the Kingdom’.

The second one sounds quite strange, but I was told it’s a reality, and ‘these bought accounts’ are used as the focal points to carry out scams.” “Many money wallets offer few procedural difficulties to make customers happy, which is not the right thing. Suppose a lengthy course of action ensures the safety and keeps the scammers at bay.

In that case, it must be adopted as the customers are now willing to bear procedural difficulties for keeping their money safe in the accounts.” He asked why the money wallets are permitting money transfers even after uninstalling and deactivating their apps. “There is no automated system to de-link with the bank account upon installing or deactivating the app, which is worsening the situation, allowing scammers to steal more and more.” The Daily Tribune spoke to many victims who have lost their money.

And all of them said they haven’t “got a fils back”.

'Social engineering'

In an exclusive interview, Ali Beshara, the Head of Information Security and Risk Management at The BENEFIT Company, which owns the popular online money transfer app BenefitPay, attributed the rise in online fund transfer scams to lack of alertness from the part of users.

Mr Beshara also pointed out that this kind of cybercrime involves ‘social engineering’ - a term used by information security professionals to describe the action from the part of hackers. “The hackers deploy their highest social engineering skills to get information, which is supposed to be kept secret, private and never shared, from their victims.

“It is in these situations, the hacker gets the password of the BenefitPay application and the OTP (One-Time Password), which is sent to the user in case of device change and money transfer,” he had said. Mr Beshara stressed that users are almost totally protected if they don’t click on links sent by fraudsters or share passwords with strangers.

Target through calls

Scammers generally target victims by making calls to their mobile phones or sending SMSs. Upon receiving the call or SMS, data is leaked and money is either transferred to other accounts or used for purchasing various goods online through the payment app already installed on the mobile phone. A few weeks ago, The Daily Tribune carried a report about fraudsters targeting the online banking and financial transaction network in the Kingdom.

The published article carried the plight of one Bangladeshi national, one Pakistani national, and an Indian businessman, who lost nearly BD1,500 to the scammers.

Stop responding to calls and text messages from strangers

Most victims have launched a complaint with the police department, pleading for an intense probe into the matter.

Cyber security experts have always highlighted the need to protect Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and online transactions from scammers in light of increasing online payments. They include not responding to calls and text messages from strangers and putting up different passwords on different accounts and UPI apps.

The Central Bank of Bahrain, many a time, has carried out campaigns and circulated messages alerting over the possibility of falling victims to online fraudsters.