The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) today published a warning regarding an online scam involving abuse of the name of the DFSA’s Chief Executive and fraudulent impersonation of employees of Barclays Bank PLC UAE.
The case is defined as an advance fee scam, with fraudsters sending e-mails to apparent customers of Barclays telling them to pay an Advance Fee of $2,000 – $5,000. Customers are promised to receive $10,000,000 once the Advance Fee is paid, without the pledge being fulfilled in effect.
The DFSA notes the attempts of the fraudsters to bully customers into making the Advance Fee payment by threatening not to send the promised funds to the customers. The fraudsters misuse the name of the DFSA and its Chief Executive, along with Barclays’ name, claiming that it was the DFSA chief that ordered the payments.
Barclays Bank has confirmed to the DFSA that:
it did not send or authorise the sending of any communication which refers to the release of USD 10,000,000, if a fee of between $2,000 to $5,000 is paid.
You can view the full warning from the DFSA by clicking here.
A copy of the scam email can be viewed here.