THE GUARDIAN
POS operators, others suffer huge losses
• NCC, CBN, NDIC, DMBS to tackle menace
• Verify bank balance, don’t depend on sms alerts, experts advise
• Pragmatic strategy to nab perpetrators underway — Police
The rising cases of fraudulent bank alerts are currently unsettling operators in Nigeria’s financial landscape as more citizens fall prey while the scammers smile to the banks daily.
The crime involves the use of Short Message Service (SMS) disguised as a transaction alert from banks to defraud unsuspecting victims, especially small scale traders and Point of Sale (PoS) operators
According to The Guardian’s findings, there are certain Apps criminals use to perpetrate the crime. These include Flash Fund App, Lofty SMS App, Money Prank Pro, Millionaire Fake Bank Account as well as Pro and fake alert maker for Android.
Unfortunately for the victims, a regulatory intervention may not come quickly as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) told The Guardian, yesterday, that its regulatory functions did not cover fake financial transactions.
The Director, Corporate Communications of the CBN, Dr. AbdulMumini Isa, who stated this while reacting to the increasing cases of fake bank alerts, explained that while such act is condemnable, the bankers’ bank does not regulate issues and practices that lie outside of the banking arena.
“Well, this type of incidence is unfortunate but the CBN does not regulate such incident. The act does not lie within the banking system. It is within the Telco firms and the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), which regulates the telecommunication industry.”
However, a source in the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy said the NCC would soon collaborate with the apex bank to introduce a scheme that would enable banks and telecommunications companies to freeze any bank account or block mobile phone line traced to fraudulent transactions. The source said the NCC would also work with the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) on the spate of electronic fraud involving Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) telephone lines and Internet banking transfers.
Fake credit alerts, one of the growing ways criminals now defraud business owners, have become very rampant in many parts of the country. For established and budding entrepreneurs, the phenomenon is proving to be a threat to their investments. Many Point of Sale (PoS) operators have become victims of the fraudulent act in recent times.
From Lagos to Kano, Abuja, Ondo, Kaduna and Akwa Ibom, among others, the story is the same. It has been lamentations from individuals and businesses, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that have fallen prey to this rising menace.
Narrating her ordeal, a Lagos based PoS operator, Mrs. Bimpe Oladele, said the fraudsters swindled her mum and sister.
“They came to the shop disguised as workers working in a site behind our house, unknown to my mum and sister that they were thieves. They perfected their plan to the extent that they even wore clothes of people working in a construction site to deceive people that they were working in a site. They requested withdrawal of N30, 000 and did a transfer. My sister called to inform me that a transfer of N30, 000 had been made to my account but I told her I had yet to receive the transfer. I also checked my mobile app and found out that it was the same. I told her not to give them the money yet but I overheard them mounting pressure on my mum and sister,’’ Oladele recalled.
According to her, it got to a time that her sister and mum could no longer bear the pressure from the swindlers who claimed that the bank had debited them. “The pressure became much after they showed them a fake debit alert, which conformed with every necessary detail. My sister and my mum gave in to the pressure and gave them the money,” she said.
Oladele thought she would receive the money on getting home, but when she didn’t get it, she concluded that she had been defrauded. “When I got home, I already observed the way the issue was going and I hadn’t received the money in my account. I waited till the end of the day and it was still the same thing. They fleeced us and even dropped an android phone as collateral. The phone was discovered to be a useless piece of item,” she added.
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