Saudi Arabia routes scam reporting through channels you probably already have on your phone: Absher for the fraud report, Kollona Amn for the police report, and your bank for the money. The trick is knowing which does what, and which of the numbers circulating online are simply wrong.
The bank, within minutes
Call your bank’s 24-hour line and report it. For card fraud this is not just advice, it is the trigger for liability: under the central bank’s credit card rules, the issuer carries responsibility for card operations only from the moment it receives your report. Every minute before that is yours.
Those rules also give you a clock to hold the bank to. The card must be suspended immediately, and the processing of an unauthorised-use claim must not exceed seven business days, including reversing the amount. That is specific to credit cards — no equivalent published deadline exists for mada, debit or account transfers, and there is no Saudi rule requiring a refund when someone was talked into authorising a payment or sharing an OTP.
Absher and Kollona Amn
Absher carries a Financial Fraud Reports service under Public Security, introduced in 2024. Kollona Amn, the Public Security app, is where a criminal report goes, including impersonation of your identity — there is no separate identity theft service. Kollona Amn is an app only; it has no website.
For emergencies, the number depends on where you are: 911 in Riyadh, Makkah and the Eastern Province, 999 elsewhere.
If the bank does not fix it: SAMA
Complaints go to the bank first. Its first-level response is due in five business days, a second-level escalation in three, and only then does the central bank take the complaint through its complaint management system — which replaced the old SAMA Cares service in July 2025, so any guide pointing you at that name is out of date. The consumer line is 8001256666.
Scam texts and calls
Forward the message itself to 330330, free, run by the communications regulator; its call centre is 19966. Forward it rather than retyping it, and do not delete the original — the message is the report.
Be clear on the limit: the regulator states that fraud crimes are outside its jurisdiction. It blocks senders and filters networks. It does not recover money. One useful tell it publishes: legitimate marketing messages carry the -AD sender tag; fraudulent ones arrive from unknown numbers with no tag.
Businesses and investments
Complaints about a licensed business go to the Ministry of Commerce on 1900 or through its Balagh Tejari app, which the ministry says are its only authorised channels. Investment offers belong with the Capital Market Authority, which takes complaints and violation reports through its investor protection pages — and requires a copy of your ID, or the complaint is not considered.
Two corrections worth carrying
First, the Ministry of Commerce has twice warned about fake websites claiming to file commercial reports for you. It never asks for card numbers, passwords or verification codes, and never requires you to install an outside app. The top search result for how to report a scam can be the scam.
Second, if you have seen 1909 described as an anti-fraud hotline, it is not; that number belongs to an unrelated authority. Ministry of Interior services are impersonated more than any other brand here, which is why the official app stores and absher.sa itself are the only addresses worth trusting.
What to have ready
Your national ID or Iqama, the mobile number registered with your bank and with Absher, a working Nafath login, the account the money came from, the transaction references, and the bank’s complaint reference with its date.