Scamsters ride on spreading mobile networks

Lahore: The phenomenal growth of telecommunication networks across Pakistan is spawning scams involving hundreds of thousands of rupees.

These days, almost everyone seems to have a device - a mobile handset or a personal digital assistant like Blackberry - making him or her as much vulnerable to exploitation by scamsters.

No doubt, the growth of telecommunications over the past five years has brought many benefits to people in general. These include cheaper and much more efficient communications system, as service providers compete with each other for clients.

But the massive growth in the number of sets, services and network providers also has its drawbacks.

One of the scams involves intended victims, whose number is selected at random, being contacted on phone, informing them that they have won a prize in a random selection of numbers. They are advised to dial a specific number to claim this "prize".

On calling the number, the balance credit in the SIM card of the unsuspecting victim is "stolen".

Cell phone services that allow balances to be transferred make such scams possible.

Another means of extracting money involves calls seeking a bank account or credit card number, which the person contacted is required send as SMS message.

As people become wiser to these con games, they begin to avoid them.

Mobile phones are also being used as tools for more sinister crimes. One involves watching people who use bank ATM machines, and then tipping of accomplices through SMS message to follow the intended victim and seize the money.

"I was robbed of Rs10,000 [Dh466] I had just taken from a cash machine. Two men followed me and then held me up in a quiet alley," says Faiqa Kayani. She says police told her this kind of crime was increasing rapidly and her followers probably had a friend who had been watching cash withdrawals.

Many banks, in an attempt to keep customers safe, have banned the presence of mobile phones within their premises.

Intelligence findings that mobile phones are being used by terrorist networks have prompted tough measures to ensure the identity of mobile phone users.

Other measures to crackdown on phone crimes have been put in place by companies, with warnings issued to clients. But even as one kind of scam is stopped, another tends to take its place. It seems there is no dearth of victims among the growing number of phone users.