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Published on November 3, 2007

Chanchai Boonritchaisri, senior director of the Legal and Litigation Department, said the central bank had recently received several complaints from bank customers about mysterious phone calls from people claiming to be from the Bank of Thailand. They were asked by the caller to provide information on their identification card to verify whether the central bank had got false reports from the commercial bank.

Some debtors panicked and agreed to follow the instructions of the callers by changing their PIN numbers. The callers who were waiting for this opportunity intercepted the PIN numbers from the debtors and withdrew money from their accounts.

Chanchai said scores of consumers said they had been fooled by these fraudsters, while some said they had received this kind of inquiry before.

The central bank will never directly contact debtors with non-performing loans, he said. Besides, it does not give out the ID numbers of people.

The Bank of Thailand is closely monitoring such acts. If anyone is found committing such a scam, the crooks will end up in jail, he added.

The Nation