RIYADH, Jul 12 (Arab News): Saudi banking sources have warned their customers planning to travel abroad for holiday making during the current summer vacation against being victims of cheating and fraudulent practices.
“The customers should be wary of unscrupulous guys who employ various fraudulent means on them, during their stay at major tourist destinations across the world,” the sources said. “They should be too cautious while undertaking phone banking at their places of residence — hotels or furnished apartments.” Al-Eqtisadiah business daily reported on Sunday that a banking source specialized in combating fraud noted that some hotels and furnished apartments are still using old telephone systems.
“It is easy for the operators of this system to have an access to the banking secret code numbers and other numbers of banking transactions of the customers through phone tapping,” the source said, adding that it is difficult to find out which are the hotels and furnished apartments that are using old telephone central systems.
Many hotels that are not five-star still have old telephone systems, the banking sources noted. They added that telephone operators of these hotels and apartments will be able to acquire full details of telephone calls made by their clients because of the phone tapping.
In most cases hotel occupants are forced to rely on these operators to make money transactions from their accounts.
Therefore, it is easy for the operators to obtain secret code numbers for banking transactions and banking phone as well as numbers of credit and ATM cards. Some unscrupulous guys use these numbers to withdraw money from the accounts without the knowledge of customers, these sources noted.
One of the banking sources said that some major hotels and furnished apartments have digital telephone systems that protect customers. The banking source urged banking customers in general and tourists in particular to make their banking transactions only through their mobile phones or the Internet.
“Most of the Saudi banks have introduced the service of sending text messages to each customer stating the position of their bank account whenever a banking transaction takes place,” said a source. “Some banks also started sending text message about digital code number of each customer, and this number should be added to the banking phone number to undertake any banking transactions.”
However, the source cautioned against using public Internet facilities such as those available at cafes, airports and hotel lounges. The source also warned against furnishing details about banking transactions made by using secret code numbers to others. It is noteworthy that the Banking Media and Awareness Committee, an affiliate of Saudi banks, is currently undertaking a campaign aimed at making aware of customers to be wary against being victims of fraudulent practices.
The campaign that targets mainly customers who are going abroad to spend their annual summer vacation focuses on getting them informed about precautionary measures to be taken while undertaking money transfer transactions.