Personal loans are a feature many look forward to ease out financial challenges in life, but they have also become the latest tool in cyber financial crimes.
The Royal Oman Police along with Central Bank of Oman, (CBO) have sent out an alert of a new fraudulent method in which perpetrators impersonate the Central Bank of Oman on social media applications such as WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Instagram, with the aim of luring victims with facilities to obtain soft loans and luring them to provide their personal and banking information via an attached electronic link, after which their money is seized from their bank accounts.
The Royal Oman Police has advised citizens and residents to ignore these messages and has requested not to open electronic links unless they are sure of their reliability, and to avoid disclosing personal data or banking information on social media, noting that the Central Bank of Oman is not concerned with providing personal and housing loans or any other banking services to individuals.
The misleading messages often depict supportive messages in regard to the problems of accessing personal loans that are usually faced by individuals.
The fake message assures issuing of loans within hours and urges the victims to provide personal bank account details.
The potential victims are encouraged to enter the loan application in system’s website. The promise is of personal loan up to RO 40,000.
“Receive your personal loan in peace,” is the assurance given in these posts. The victims are informed that once they decide on the type and the loan amount, an admission officer will enter the loan application and the electronic financial loan will be chosen. The application is only completed after providing full name, civil number and other details leaving the victim vulnerable as all the personal details are accessible.
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