The woman received a call from someone impersonating a bank official and was convinced to share her bank account number. "The person read out the first few numbers and asked me to give the remaining numbers. Then the person asked me to switch some numbers if i wanted to do online shopping. I thought the PIN number was required for online transactions. But the person didn't ask for my PIN number," the woman said. According to the woman, her entire life savings had been wiped clean. The woman realised that she had been victim to the scam after she called the bank following the suspicious call. "Bank said the money was withdrawn just five minutes prior. So they [scam artists] were withdrawing the money while on the call with me," the helpless woman said. She said the money was saved for her child's higher studies. But the bank said there is nothing it can do to recover the money, she added. Several people had been victims of the scam where the culprits pretending to be bank officials had conned unsuspecting people of credit and debit card information. Maldives' main bank, Bank of Maldives (BML) had urged customers against sharing personal banking details over the phone. In a press statement, the bank said a number of customers have received emails asking them to provide information such as Internet Banking username, personal email address and passwords to a false website which looks similar to the bank’s Internet Banking login page. “Some customers have even received phone calls from people who say they are calling from BML and who ask for the same kind of information,” the statement said. The bank has urged customers to take extra caution and to refrain from responding to these requests. “Customers should only use our official website or their BML Mobile App to log onto Internet Banking”, it added. “We would like to emphasise that BML will never ask customers to share their password or personal details.”