Online fraudsters target Omanis availing foreign study

SALALAH, Sept 24 - The online fraudsters are targeting young Omani students and employees who are either availing foreign study assignments or have come back after completing the course. They are finding them their prospective ‘catch’, keeping track on minute travel details of such candidates including their country of study, dates of departure and arrival etc. They find these details handy for seeking more information and ultimately the bank details. Not sure how many of such candidates are really victims, but two of them shared their experiences with the Observer. One of them confided that all through the conversation he could not realise that something wrong was happening with him until the fraudster came to the level of asking his bank details and transaction code mentioned on the back of the debit or credit card. It may be a coincidence that both the targets — Salem al Mashani and Mohammed Ba Omar — are employees of public sector establishments. Smart but innocent Salem admitted that all through the conversation he could not feel that anything wrong was happening with him as the setting in the background was “quite professional” and the callers were asking “very genuine questions.” “The latest conversation happened on the first day of Eid al Adha. They had called me several times in the past after I came back from Canada completing a short course in English.” They seemed polite and professional as they were never in a hurry whenever I told them to call later as I was busy.” An automated response system would greet Salam with a note: “Welcome to Canadian immigration system, press 1 for enquiry.” “One day I pressed 1 to take the call and then started a long interview based mainly on my personal details, my educational qualification, place where I work etc. In between they mentioned my departure and arrival dates in Oman to make the call authentic. Then they told ‘you qualify for permanent residency in Canada…’ and finally asked ‘are you interested’ I said yes”. For Salam the background was sounding like some interview board sitting and asking, as some lady was directing the main interviewer to ask additional questions. Salam did not realise any fraud even when the ‘interviewer’ asked to divulge his transaction code. Out of good sense he requested them to send him the link of the application, which would fill and pay online. The call then stopped and he did not receive any call further. “Luckily I discussed the development with a journalist friend who alerted me with of the fraud and then I could realise that these people were chasing me since April 2018 and were calling almost weekly. The calls were coming from Canadian code and number,” he said, and added that later he found many cases in which the fraudsters were either hacking or somehow manipulating the source numbers to let the target feel that the calls were genuine. Like Salam, Mohammed went for a short course in UK. Six months after he came back, he started receiving calls from unknown international numbers with permanent residency offers and ultimately bank account details. Kaushalendra Singh