KUWAIT CITY, Sept 5 : A Kuwait woman, born in 1982, has filed a complaint with the Salmiya police accusing an unknown person of stealing 2,499 dinars from her bank account, reports Al-Anba daily. The complainant told police she received a call from a cell phone (Kuwait number) and the caller said he was the local bank employee and said her credit card needs to be renewed to prevent the account from being suspended.

The woman swallowed the bait and gave the caller all information he asked for, including the password and in a few seconds she was shocked to find her bank balance 200 fils. All this happened in spite of the security sources requesting not to entertain such calls and banks warning that no bank officials are authorized to get personal information on the phone and that the password should not be given to anyone under any circumstances, even to bank employees.

In the meantime, the Al-Qabas daily said organized international gangs targeting bank clients and deceiving them to steal from their bank accounts and had been active during the past two months, were able to steal from some clients’ accounts large sums of money, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting security sources.

The same sources said the security services have received about 140 reports over the past two months, indicating the gang members have renewed methods of defrauding bank clients, one of which relies on sending text messages from phone numbers that follow local networks informing clients of winning cash prizes, or informing those who obtained bank loans to postpone their installments for longer periods, while requesting important data from them, such as the password or the account number, and any other information that helps them get access to their bank accounts.

The sources added that many of the victims also received direct phone calls made from the numbers of local telecommunications companies claiming to be employees of local banks, and they ask customers for some important data, and then get access to their bank accounts. The Department of Cybercrime has warned against responding to that type of communications or messages, and demanded that it be completely ignored in order to protect themselves from criminals, pointing out that despite multiple warnings, some clients still fall prey to those gangs.