German expat in Dubai loses Dh45,000 to phishing attack

Timna Sophia, 32, a German expatriate, felt the ground open up before her on April 10. Soon, she was overcome with horror, trauma, despair, and vulnerability.

Sophia’s woes started after she was defrauded of Dh45,000 from her bank account by a sophisticated phishing attack.

She recounted her ordeal with Khaleej Times on Tuesday.

Fraudsters spent an hour on the phone with Sophia and managed to convince her that her debit card had become dysfunctional because of the raging Covid-19 pandemic.

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They used ingenious methods to authenticate their fraudulent ways such as sending her verified text messages from Dubai Police and even sent her a package of a new debit card through a reputed courier and logistical company.

The scamsters engaged her in a conversation, hacked into her bank account and added themselves as a new beneficiary to her Internet banking account. She lost her savings no sooner was the new beneficiary account added.

'I lost my entire inheritance sum'

The amount in her bank account is part of the inheritance sum she had received from her father in February. “My father passed away in July last year after suffering from cancer. He spent his entire life working for the German automobile company Mercedes-Benz,” said Sophia.

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Since her father passed away at the height of Covid-19-induced lockdown restrictions, she could not meet him for one last time because of a bar on travelling.

“Finally, I got permission to travel to Germany on a Monday last year. Unfortunately, he passed away the previous night,” she said.

She reminisced how her father had painstakingly set aside the inheritance sum through the years.

“He kept aside a part of his income every month as savings for my brother and me. I had planned to buy a car with that amount during the holy month of Ramadan. Now, my plan stands shattered,” she added.

Dubai Police are investigating the case.

Lieutenant Khaled Mohammed Barakat Banasser, an official at the Smart Police Stations Investigation Operations, Dubai Police, told Khaleej Times that the fraudster stole almost all of her savings, leaving only Dh50 in her bank account.

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Sophia, a nanny to a British family in Dubai, has been a Dubai resident for the past six years. “I’m aware of these scam calls, as I’ve been living here long enough. However, I never thought I’d fall victim to this kind of scam,” she said.

However, when fraudsters targeted her, Sophia couldn’t separate the chaff from the grain.

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On April 10, she received a four-digit activation key from the courier company. “Soon, I got a call from a Dubai number, which claimed to be a caller from the Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD),” she said.

The scamsters took advantage of the contagion, she added.

“The caller took my 16-digit debit card number and asked me for the three-digit card verification value (CVV) printed on the back of my card,” she added.

Though Sophia was hesitant to hand over the sensitive and personal information, her fears were allayed soon.

She received verified text messages from Dubai Police.

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com