Several people have fallen victim to sites promoting sports equipment suitable for home exercises, and it turned out - later - that they are fronts for fraudsters who realize the need of people for this type of equipment and simple tools, in light of the home quarantine, closing gyms, and not allowing sports outside, to protect individuals Society of Corona virus infection «Covid 19»
For its part, Dubai Police warned through its official accounts on social networks against entering bank data in untrusted sites, as they are fake pages that store bank data and exploit it illegally.
A security source said to "Emirates Today" that "complaints were actually received from exposure to this type of fraud", pointing out that most of these sites are managed from abroad, but Dubai Police is seeking, in cooperation with the relevant authorities, to block these suspicious sites and accounts on social networks , Outlining some steps that the user must take care to protect themselves, before making this error.
In detail, Maher Ali, a resident of Dubai, said that he used to exercise every day before the spread of the Corona virus and the country took precautionary measures, and looked for a source to buy some of the sports tools he needed to do fitness exercises at home, and watched an attractive offer while browsing Facebook for a number of devices that He needs it, provided by a commercial site that he did not know about before, which led him to enter to browse the offers on that site.
He added that he did not doubt a moment about the nature of the site, because its design is perfect and does not differ at all from the well-known e-marketing sites, so he chose a set of tools and then paid by credit card the amount of 400 dirhams.
He pointed out that the strange thing is not to take the usual procedures before deducting the amount, as he is supposed to receive a confirmation letter from the bank to ensure that he conducted the transaction himself, but that did not happen and deduct the amount directly, and waited for the arrival of the tools he bought but to no avail, and realized that he had fallen victim A fraud when a complaint is sent through the request follow-up service on this site, and he has not received any response.
For his part, Mohamed Ali said that the prices of sports equipment suitable for training at home rose dramatically in well-known stores, so he looked for alternative sources from which he would buy a number of weights, a resistance rope, a rubber band and other tools.
He added: «It is interesting that once he browsed the applications of some famous and reliable electronic stores in search of the prices of these tools, he immediately appeared to him through social networks on offers of the same tools at attractive prices, so he resorted to buying some items with $ 150, withdrawing the amount from his card and discovered Later, he is a victim of a fraud.
While Ali Basil mentioned that he fell into the same trap despite his relative experience in the field of electronic shopping, pointing out that the site from which he bought these tools seemed real, until he discovered later that a front for fraudsters took advantage of the people's need for sporting devices suitable for the home.
For his part, a security source in Dubai Police said, "It is necessary to be cautious when buying online and take simple preventive steps from fraudsters, the most important of which is to verify the date of launch of the site. If it is recent, purchase should not be rushed and try to verify its authenticity."
He added that it is also important to review the opinions of former users through the comments that appear on the pages of these sites on networks, because former victims usually warn of the frauds they have been exposed to, and it should be noted that these fraudsters sometimes publish positive comments to deceive their victims, so It is necessary to link the history and nature of the comments to distinguish the real from the misleader.
The source stressed the need to use prepaid cards, which are intended for online purchase, because recording the data of the primary cards, whether the debit card or the credit card in these sites, may display them later for exploitation by pirates and scammers.
He explained that the major sites are keen to secure their payment system to protect their customers, but those fake sites are subject to data being stolen, pointing out that Google Drive provides the ability to ascertain the truth of the sites, but in general you should pay attention to any site whose address begins with "http" and not https