KUWAIT CITY, May 18: The government agencies are concerned with the shopping system during the times of the curfew through the "barcode", which they have detected a fraud on the part of consumers in reservations through the system which may expose them to face legal action.

According to the sources, manipulations is done by choosing the location of housing address does not match the address registered in the civil id to visit super markets or a cooperative by entering an PACI number for a housing unit in the region they want to go to.

Once an number is registered upon reservation it is saved as the residence of the person making the reservation it cannot be changed again.

There are consumers who have called the relevant authorities and demanded to change their number again, which could be a legal problem for consumers.

Many of the manipulators are manipulating the PACI housing unit number, in order to go to visit supermarkets in other regions and return to their areas again which violates the rules of the total ban to prevent movement outside the regions. 

Sources stressed that all citizens and expats must adhere to the rules of total lock down that do not allow movement from one region to another, and shop within their residential areas so that no legal action will be taken on them.

In a related context, the daily follow-up report on the number of shoppers during the embargo times revealed that the total bookings of shopping through "barcodes" since the launch of the appointment reservation system last April, amounted to 1.059 million reservations.

The ministry indicated that the total online shopping reservations the day before yesterday recorded 74,408 appointments through online booking system for cooperatives and supermarkets. 42,210 people attended, representing 56.7% of the total reservations today.

The cooperative societies registered 4,309 reservations, while the attendance reached 24,738, or 57%. The total number of supermarket appointments was 25,323, with 15201 attending, representing 60%.

The MOCI stated that the catering branches recorded reservations amounting to 6026 reservations, while attendance reached 271, representing 38%.

In addition, the Ministry confirmed that the shopping appointment reservation system includes the tourist visa holders where the unified number mentioned on the visa paper has to be placed in the field of civil ID number and the serial number box and complete the reservation by choosing an address by choosing the housing does not match the civil ID.
The steps for this category included entering the residence's automatic number, whether it is the hotel or any other place where the visa holder is residing.