Taking advantage of mobile banking, widespread fraud cases have been reported with the money of Fitra and Zakat, mandatory rituals in Islam during Ramadan.
The report of a fact checker organization called “Rumor Scanner” has highlighted that these frauds are being done by using the opportunity of mobile banking and capitalizing religious issues.
As the amount of money is small, no one usually complains about it to the law enforcement agencies.
On April 9, a woman named Jannat Bani received an SMS on her mobile phone.
The message read: “Jannat Apu, I am someone very close to you. I can't introduce myself out of shame. We are a needy family and are passing days in bad condition. Eid is approaching. I do not know what will happen. My father has no money either. If you send some money from your Fitra or Zakat, it will be very helpful for us. Please please.”
After receiving this message, Jannat Bani thought that one of her relatives might have sent the message. In view of this, she also sent some money to the number given in the message.
Same message sent to people since 2021
By searching various keywords on Facebook about the number, the investigators found complaints of at least 23 people from different areas of the country till April 12. These people also received similar messages. Many of them were surprised to see their name at the beginning of the message. However, many of them have realized after some preliminary investigation that the message senders may be cheating. So they did not send money.
While investigating the matter, it found out that since 2021, the same message has been sent to numerous people from different numbers. Believing in the language of messages and the urge of helplessness, several people have also extended a helping hand through mobile banking services.
This year, Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated in Bangladesh on April 11.
Rumor Scanner monitored Facebook for at least a week before Eid to see if anyone was responding to messages sent asking for help with Fitra and Zakat.
According to their observations, the same message was sent to different people from at least 11 different mobile numbers at that time.
Among these, the most number of complaints received on Facebook is about this number +8801872703502.
At least 40 people claimed in various posts and comments on Facebook that they have received the same message from this number at least from April 9 to 12.
No complaints
Md Rezaul Masud, deputy inspector general (DIG) of Criminal Investigative Department’s Cyber Police Centre, said that this type of fraud has increased due to the increase in online transactions, especially in mobile financial services.
Fraudsters target the Eid season or any special festival. Taking advantage of religious issues, the gang grabs money from various people in the name of Zakat.
He said: “The amount of money is not much in these cases..from Tk500-1000 or 2,000. The victims do not think that they have been cheated too much with this small amount of money.”
They do not make any complaints to the police because of the low amount. In these cases, awareness is the first priority. Anyone should personally know the person he/she is giving money to. In which sector the money is going, it should be given knowing the details, said the CID official.
