If you ever thought that nobody could trick you into anything, well, think again. Recent happenings in Dammam city alone indicate that if you are an expatriate, there is good chance that you could fall prey to a trickster just as it happened to an Indian expat named Mustapha. A salesman in an electronics shop in Dammam city, Mustapha, received a call from a stranger claiming to be from Saudi Telecom. According to Mustapha, the person spoke fluent Urdu. The fraudster informed Mustapha that he had won SR50,000 from STC for purchasing a new Sawa SIM. To get the money, Mustapha only had to purchase a SR300 recharge card and disclose its serial number to the person on the other end of the phone. For a moment Mustapha believed what the man said, but when the fraudster told him that his name and the details of winning the prize would be published in the newspaper the next day, Mustapha smelled a rat and backed off. “I was very happy for a second; thinking that I had won 50,000 riyals, but suddenly I realized that it could be a trick because when I purchased my SIM card, there were no particular offers, and as he wanted me to buy a SR300 recharge card and give him its serial number, I was pretty sure that I was being cheated and so I backed off,” said Mustapha. In yet another incident in the city of Hafr Al-Batin in the Eastern Province, many fell prey to three expatriates who stopped passersby pleading for monetary help to repair their broken down car. They even offered to sell their expensive-looking mobile phone sets. Several people fell prey to their machinations only to find that the mobile phone sets were cheap models made in China. Cases of imposters posing as CID officers and looting mobile phone sets and other valuables from the accommodations of workers are also very common in Dammam.
