Survey: 95% telecom consumers aware of fraud messages

Doha: Around 95 percent of telecom consumers in Qatar are aware of fraud messages, a survey conducted by the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) has shown.

The CRA recently conducted a bilingual survey in Arabic and English on social media channels about fraud messages. The survey was conducted in line with CRA’s efforts to spread awareness among telecom consumers in Qatar and aimed at measuring telecom consumers’ level of awareness of fraud messages, that inform consumers that they won a prize, or that their bank card has been suspended or compromised, and ask them to call on suspicious mobile number, so they can get their personal or bank information. The survey covered around 1,200 participants.

The results indicate that 95 percent of telecom consumers are aware of fraud messages and its purposes and that they take the necessary measures to protect themselves and devices from hacking, by either ignoring the messages, deleting it, or by blocking the number and reporting it to their telecom service provider.

“We urge telecom consumers not to respond to fraud messages, delete the messages to avoid the risk of replying to it accidentally, avoid calling the mentioned number, report it to their telecom service provider or bank to validate this message, and avoid opening the link attached as hackers use this method to obtain their personal information or direct them to a malware site that can affect the data on their devices,” said Amel Salem Al Hanawi, Director of Consumer Affairs Department, CRA.

“Due to the increase of fraud messages recently, I want to confirm that telecom service providers and banks will never contact their customers through messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP) mobile applications to ask for their passwords, activation code, or personal and financial information. By following these preventive measures, telecom consumers can help to limit these fraud messages,” she added.