Maldives Police Service revealed that more than MVR 100,000 were scammed in different rackets over the last 10 days.
Police stated that of late the service had received a number of complaints regarding scams involving promotional offers. In the last 10 days, people had reported losing more than MVR 26,600 in mobile phone reload transfer scams, while an additional loss of MVR 90,000 was reported in rackets involving bank transactions.
According to the police, most scams involved phone quizzes, where victims were asked to send money as mobile phone reloads to a provided phone number or make account transfers to a specified bank account so that they could proceed ahead in the quiz. The police also noted that the racketeers instructed victims not to divulge any information and asked the victims to complete the money transactions while remaining on the line.
The police also warned that there was an increase in scams via various social media platforms and phone calls, requesting credit/debit card information. Scammers in some instances had obtained important security information like the security code on the credit/debit cards, according to the police.
The police urged the public to be vigilant about such rackets and, in such an instance, to authenticate whether the call was made from a valid reliable number. In cases of suspicion, Police urged the people to notify the authorities.
In a statement published on the police website, the service urged the public not to divulge important security information about credit/debit cards and to keep in mind that companies offering promotions would never ask for such security details.
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