As international financial transactions are increasingly based on plastic rather than cash, the security of those using credit cards is being breached and fraud is on the rise. Saudi police recently arrested a group of people involved in fraudulent credit card transactions, a phenomenon which is common in western countries and in other parts of the world. Saudi Gazette spoke to some people whose credit card numbers were used by fraudsters. Abu Faisal an expatriate became a victim of credit card fraud when he went to the UK recently for his vacation. Upon his return to the Kingdom, he was shocked to receive a credit card bill for over SR15,000 for items purchased in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, even though he has never visited those countries. “I immediately contacted my bank which blocked my card and asked me to send a letter with the credit card bills to the bank's fraud department for investigation,” said Abu Faisal. “The difficulty is that until this problem is solved, the bank will debit the minimum amount for payment every month from my account, and as the entire amount is not being paid, a late payment fee and interest will be added for the next month. Even though this is not my fault, I will have to bear it,” he explained . Another credit card holder Sami Ahmed said that his bank has canceled and replaced his Visa credit card three times already as someone in another country has tried to purchase items on the Internet using his credit card. “All credit cards should be made like those in the UK which contain a smart chip like a sim card which is controlled by a secret pin number, which only the customer knows. This will help reduce fraud to a certain extent,” said Ahmed Malik, a British visitor to the Kingdom. Saudi Gazette asked Thamer K. Al-Mashari, manager of the credit card department at the Saudi British Bank, how such fraud can take place, and he said that fraudsters often obtain the card number through employees. “Also when people use their credit card on the Internet, hackers may be able to get it and sometimes fake websites are created to attempt to collect credit card numbers,” Al-Mashari explained. “Although this is common in some parts of the world, in Saudi Arabia we have monitoring systems and if any suspicious transaction is noted, we block the card immediately,” he said.
