DAMMAM: The criminal court here is currently hearing evidence in a lawsuit brought by a group of people claiming that a woman defrauded them on Instagram.

The lawsuit states that they had not received products bought from the woman. The defendant had also not answered their calls when they tried to contact her, according to sources quoted in a local publication recently.

Hamoud bin Farhan Al-Khalidi, a lawyer, said that Instagram and other sites are known for having some criminals try to rob people because they are popular and sell products such as cosmetics and accessories to mostly women.

Al-Khalidi said most victims do not file complaints because of the small amounts involved or because they do not know who to sue. He said the Ministry of Commerce and Industry should check all people trading online, in cooperation with the Communications and Information Technology Commission.

The increasing reliance on shopping online has also seen rates of fraud and theft rise, affecting 20 percent of Saudis who make Internet-based purchases, economists warned earlier this year in a report published by Arab News.

“Although online commerce has facilitated buying and selling by overcoming physical boundaries between traders and consumers, negative side effects have emerged due to a lack of trust between parties, the ease of fraud and theft by using fake identities and names, and sale of products that do not match online descriptions or regulatory specifications,” Salem Bajajah, an analyst and economist, was quoted as saying earlier this year.

In an effort to protect consumers, the Commerce Ministry had announced a set of penalties for those who defraud consumers. These include a fine of up to SR1 million, cancelation of commercial licenses, doubling of financial penalties for repeat offenders, and naming and shaming violators by publishing their names in newspapers, the report said.