RIYADH, 29 August — A Saudi national has allegedly used the names of other Saudis to rent mobile phones without their knowledge, so he could in turn rent them out to expatriate workers at a profit. The scandal became public when the victims approached Saudi Telecom Company after receiving huge mobile phone bills. They have told the STC to declare them guiltless in the scam and remove their names from the blacklist they have unwittingly found themselves placed on.
The authorities are now inspecting the contract documents to see if they can provide additional information to back up the claims against the Saudi national.
The victims say they have been told the phones rented in their name were used to make calls to a number of Asian countries, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as well to countries further afar like Canada.
The scam lasted only three days, at which point the Saudi Telecom Company disconnected the lines. Unfortunately, that proved plenty of time for their users to run up huge bills. A few days later, at least 12 Saudi nationals found out that they were being asked to foot bills totaling SR850,000.
Saleh Al-Jasser, marketing manager of STC, told Arab News that people who engage in such forgery are treated as serious criminals.
But they are not always easy to detect.
“The company deals with its clients only on the basis of the names and other personal particulars written on application forms,” he said.
The Saudi victims have explained that the alleged criminal had managed to get the mobile phones issued in their names by providing fake authorization letters signed by bogus companies.
STC is responsible for 2.2 million clients and Al-Jasir said he does have the statistics for the number of subscribers who have obtained mobile phones fraudulently.
“Our rules and regulations are clear, and the company does not give any service if the necessary documents are not presented by clients or their agents,” he explained.
A few days ago a Saudi who has never owned a mobile phone received a bill for SR28,349 from STC. Abdullah ibn Ali Aswad, from Makkah, was presented with the bill when he visited the company’s office to get a telephone connection for his house.
“I told STC officials that I don’t have a mobile phone and none of my children use the service, but they insisted that I pay the bill first and then lodge a complaint,” Aswad claimed.
The telecom giant increased its revenues last year by 12.6 percent to SR16.5 billion, against SR14.6 billion the previous year, and the company received payment of SR15.2 billion, or 92 percent of the bills it issued.
The total amount of unpaid STC bills since the company’s formation in 1988 until the end of 2000 stood at SR3.3 billion. The bills cover all STC services except mobile phones.
The company’s expenditure on restructuring programs amounted to SR465 million over the past two years. The program aims at improving STC’s administration and the efficiency of its various departments.
STC last week awarded a SR2.545 billion ($678.66 million) contract to Ericsson of Sweden and Nokia of Finland to expand the Kingdom’s mobile phone system by adding 2.8 million lines to the network within two years.
As per the contract, the cost of a single mobile line will be SR909 ($242) instead of SR1,028 ($274) in the last expansion project.
The contract also calls for the expansion of the network in Jeddah by replacing 470,000 existing lines and adding 657,000 new mobile lines. The third component of the project includes the replacement of 12 exchanges in the Western Region and the establishment of four new ones.
This part will be handled Kingdomwide by Ericsson, which will also execute a major portion of the STC radio network.
The contract also provides for installing a new signaling system to be connected to the fixed line network to streamline the paging system.
Other services, such as General Packet Radio System (GPRS), prepaid, Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP), Intelligent Network and so on will be incorporated. The GPRS will facilitate Internet services through the GSM.
Nokia will implement the project in the Western Region, where it will replace 866,000 existing GSM lines and install 688,000 new ones. It will also train 55 Saudi nationals.
According to Al-Jasser, the expansion program will cover all the Kingdom’s cities. Currently, a total of 100 cities involving over 90 percent of the population have been linked within the GSM network.
Saud Al-Duwaish, acting president of STC, said the present contract will focus on extending the GSM network to 12 main roads in the cities, thereby bringing 95 percent of the Kingdom’s roads within the expansion program.
Moreover, the coverage will extend to the interior of the Kingdom, including villages. Data transmission will be much faster than at present and also free from any disturbance.
