Men posing as bank staff dupe woman of BD1,000

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Appeal filed against a five-year jail term awarded to two men convicted of conning a woman out of BD1,000 posing as bank agents got rejected. The High Appeals Court confirmed the jail terms and a BD1,000 fine slapped on each of the men.

The woman, in her complaint filed with the police, said that the men allegedly threatened during a call to disclose the information of her card unless she wanted to get the card suspended. “They claimed were bank agents and persistently kept saying that they are trying to help me,” the victim told prosecutors.

Investigations led to the arrest of both the suspects. Police found the men had transferred the duped money to another person, an Asian National, living abroad. When questioned, the second suspect swore, “I am not involved in any scam, and I didn’t cheat anybody. I work in a car body shop.” “Only thing I did was downloading and installing a financial application on my phone as requested by my friend - the first suspect, according to police.” “He told me that I would receive two text messages for receiving money.

“He also asked me to keep for myself BD100 and transfer the rest to an unknown person living abroad. “So, I took BD100 and sent BD900,” he added. The Public prosecution had charged the duo with forgery and fraud. The Court also ordered their deportation once they serve their prison terms.

The Daily Tribune had earlier reported about people losing their hard-earned money to credit, debit cards and banking frauds. The most common type of cheating is by fraudsters posing as bank employees call people and cheating them after artfully taking card details. The Central Bank of Bahrain had also repeatedly warned people not to respond to calls received through smartphone apps claiming they are the bank service provider and requesting personal and banking information. The bank would never use a smartphone app to request sensitive information, CBB says.