Dubai: Mobile Lottery Scam - Reader's Experience with a Fraudster
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore/Dubai
With inputs from Pearl D'Souza
Mangalore/Dubai, Oct 2: Of late, several cases of SMS lottery fraud have come to light, raising concerns over the gullibilty of those who fall prey, and the unabated manner in which the trend is continuing despite several warnings in the media as well as from authorities. Day after day, wily minds set their traps with impunity, with little respect for law, knowing well the extent that people can go to in their greed for money.
In a span of just one month, two such cases were reported, and in both, the victims lost money to the tune of several lacs, all because they believed in a shady SMS that told them of a lottery worth crores they had 'won'. It is disheartening that such blind belief in unknown 'Mikes' and 'Peters' in a distant Europe (or wherever) is leading gullible people to put all their hard-earned money at stake, without even caring to find out the credentials of the people they are interacting with, or, at least consulting those who know.
However, lottery fraud through mobile phones is a trend not restricted to India alone. It is happening everywhere, but as Pearl, a reader of Daijiworld demonstrates here, caution, presence of mind and a few minutes on the internet is all it takes to keep such fraudsters at bay.
Pearl's experience in her own words
My name is Pearl. I am a Mangalorean who came to Dubai for work and further studies. I put an advertisement in dubizzle.com seeking a job and got a reply from from 'ballee2359@yahoo.com'. The person told me to contact him as soon as possible on +923214317437. I was so desperately in need of a job that I didn't even bother to find out which country's code was (92).
As there was nothing written about the job details, I asked him to provide me with it and forwarded my CV (wherein my phone number was mentioned). I sent the mail around 10 am and got a call from a man called Kumraan from Etisalat from the number 00971503585940 at 1 pm. His English was very poor and he told me that I had won a lottery worth AED 2,00,000 and asked me to remove my sim card and check if my number was 89971122___. I gave the phone to my aunt. She told him she would check it and call back.
When I removed the sim card I saw that the number was right and we thought if he knew part of the number on my sim, the man must be telling the truth. But then again, I started getting calls from him which made me doubt his intentions. If I had indeed won a lottery, why was he in a hurry to give it to me?
My aunt sternly warned him, "You better not be fooling around," for which he replied, "No madam, don't say that. You are being recorded and will be telecast on TV later on. Also, people at the top level are listening to this conversation..."
After that my aunt asked him how we were supposed to collect the money and he asked us to dial *121# and when I did, '0 KB' appeared on the mobile screen. He next told us to recharge with 500 dirhams and then dial the same number again. "You will get a code and that code you are supposed to tell me. I will give u another code, which you must provide when you receive the money from Al Ansaari Exchange or UAE Exchange," he said. My aunt agreed.
But then he called up again in a few minutes and told us to get the recharge done within 10 minutes. My aunt told him it was not possible to do it so quickly. Instead of doing as he said, my aunt asked me to google and we got to know it's a FRAUD!!
I went through the search results one by one, and that's how I got to know about this SCAM that some Pakistani people were running. They take advantage of the people who place ads for employment, and once they get their CVs they call them and fool them in the name of lottery!
Please convey this message others in the UAE and save them from getting fooled by such fraudsters. I saved myself....
Note from Daijiworld: Etisalat has time and again issued warnings to its customers about scamsters who contact UAE residents from Pakistan-based numbers (country code 92), and clarified several times that the company is not running any raffle or lottery draws. Similary, dubizzle.com in its online support centre warns job applicants to be wary of fraudsters that may use its site to trap people, and lists a number of ways to avoid them.