Indian workers in UAE warned about telecom scams

Indian workers have been warned about telecom scams to which many have fallen prey in the UAE.

The workers are being sensitised about phone scams through awareness campaigns conducted by the Indian Workers Resource Centre (IWRC). The campaign is being led by Navdeep Singh Suri, Indian Ambassador to the UAE. He said unscrupulous agents selling postpaid connection to low-paid workers and impostors taking SIM connections in the names of innocent workers have landed many workers in trouble.

“There are some cases where postpaid plans were sold to workers who do not earn the salary required to get such plans. Some fraudsters are doing this after taking gullible workers into confidence that they don’t have to pay rent and they have a lot of call benefits.

“In one case, a worker’s plan was upgraded to VIP whereas he didn’t even have online access.”

However, workers run into trouble when they are sent bills with rentals and additional call charges.

In another type of phone scam, fraudsters are misusing the documents of workers to take multiple SIM connections in the latter’s names. Victims of such scams have had to run from pillar to post to get waiver for the bills that have piled up in their names.

During the awareness drive, which was livestreamed on Facebook, workers were told to be vigilant against such scams. “We urge them to go to the authorised business centres of telecom companies in malls and established locations to take phone connections,” Navdeep Singh Suri is reported to have said.

Workers were told to write down the purpose of providing copies of their documents like passport and Emirates ID on those copies so that misusing them can be minimised or tracked down in future.