Daily Times

KARACHI: Bank account holders regularly fall victim to phone scammers due to the caller ID spoofing while the banks and other government agencies have been totally failed to deal with the menace, Daily Times learnt.

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) sources revealed that scammers involved in multi-millions online banking frauds have not yet been traced because of technical flaws due to which banks’ account holders in Pakistan are at stake.

According to sources, dozens of account holders have been deprived of their money by the scammers in last few months in Karachi and their money has been withdrawn through micro-finance banking cards in the far and flung cities of Punjab while FIA Lahore Zone is investigating the matter.

In spoof calling, one can make a call with any number he desires to be seen on the mobile screen by utilizing specific software, but in banking fraud it is quite a difficult task without internal leakage of initial information, sources added.

FIA started investigation in to this matter when one prominent private bank of the country contacted FIA Cyber Crime Circle inKarachi three months ago. The bank informed the federal agency that almost around Rs 25 million from bank accounts of its various account holders has been transferred through online banking system in to other bank accounts with out their (account holders) knowledge.

FIA received various other complaints of same sort, when FIA team investigated the matter thoroughly it surfaced that a group of fraudsters active in the districts Raheem Yar Khan and Bahawalpur of Punjab withdrawing money with spoof calling by using the soft wares and mobile internet data.

Interestingly, bank officials claimed that they received calls from registered numbers of account holders asking them to transfer the money while the account holders say that they received calls from official bank numbers inquiring for personal information.

But, parties, bank officials and account holders denied making such calls.