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Man duped of Dh14,500 in 'number spoofing' bank scam

Now, the 31-year-old man has no money left to buy gifts for his two kids.

A man has been duped of £3,100 (Dh14,500) by a fraudster in a new "number spoofing" bank scam, Mirror has reported.
The scammer called from a number which appeared to be a genuine Royal Bank of Scotland's general enquiries line and made Rhys Tapley, 31, believe that his account had been compromised. Rhys fell into the trap, and gave away his bank details that were sought by the conman.
Now, Rhys, an oil rig floor hand Arbroath, Scotland, has no money left to buy Christmas presents for his two kids, aged nine and four. The distraught man has called on the banks to find out a security mechanism which can prevent such frauds in the future.

While regretting the incident, RBS said it is working with telecoms providers to stop "spoofing" - where fraudsters can make a call or text message as though it came from the bank, the report added.
Rhys was quoted as saying: "It's such a terrible thing to go through at this time of year. I've been left with virtually nothing. It makes me feel sick. The guy that did this to me. He's taken all my money and he's likely doing it over and over. He doesn't care about his victims.
Sharing his distressing experience, Rhys said after the first fraudulent call, he received text messages which appeared to be from RBS saying a new phone number had been registered with his account. The scamster then called again and asked him to log on to his online banking, while confusing him by asking him numerous questions about his account, which led him to hand over his log in details.
Rhys said: "Because they've conned me into handing over my own money myself, there isn't a lot I can do. That's the most gutting part."
An RBS spokesperson said: "We sympathise with Mr Tapley who has been the victim of a scam. We take our responsibilities to preventing scams very seriously and will always assist our customer in the recovery of their funds on a best endeavours basis.
"We are consistent in our education to customers to be vigilant when accepting calls claiming to be from their bank and we would never ask a customer to move money to another account to keep it safe from scams or fraud.
"We would remind our customers that they should never make a payment or divulge full security credentials at the request of someone over the phone."