UAE: Etisalat warns of scams as residents lose thousands of dirhams.

When Dubai resident U.B. got a call from her close friend requesting her to recharge the e-sim he had bought; she immediately went online to do so. Unfortunately for her, the first link she encountered for the UAE-based telecom operator Etisalat by e& was a fake one. It was a website that bore the name of the telecom provider, but with one letter extra. (See photo below)

“I am very conscious about scams so I checked and re-checked several times,However, I did not notice the slight error in the spelling of the website. That was my first mistake. The rest of the website looked exactly like the Etisalat one. I entered my card details and I got an OTP. Usually when you get the OTP, you just look at the number and don’t read the whole message. That was the second mistake I made. Once I entered the OTP, a sum of Dh1,954.75 was deducted from my account.” (See photo below)

Now, e& has put out an advisory warning people to avoid unsafe links and to be careful about sharing personal information online. In a video posted to the account on social media platform X, the company has shared how some sites mimic their official sites.

In the video, some websites have the address www.emirates.co.ae, while others had www.etisalat.com. However, the video pointed out that such fake websites often have a tag showing that they were not secure.

U.B. admitted that she considered herself incredibly lucky that she only lost around Dh2,000. “I have heard horror stories and accounts from people who have lost up to Dh30,000,” she said. “I only lost an amount that I can recuperate from. It was an expensive lesson but one I will never forget in my life. I think, henceforth, I will never recharge from a website. I will always download the app or do it directly from my bank.”