Thousands of Kenyans are losing billions of shillings annually to mobile phone fraudsters.The cons, who are like a pack of hyenas hunting in the dark, prey on the ignorance, gullibility and vulnerability of their targets to steal. Their messages are sent out randomly in the belief that at least one person will respond. And, often, they hit jackpots.
For instance, 83-year-old Wangechi Nderitu recently received a message informing her that she had won Sh100,000 in a raffle competition that she had registered for, and needed to call a particular number to claim her prize money.
When she did, she was asked to send Sh10,000, which would be used to book an appointment to collect the prize, as well as for other small administrative matters. She did as asked, and then waited for further instructions. They never came.
“The man on the other end went off the network soon after I sent him the Sh10,000,” recalls the granny from Othaya, Nyeri County.
The tricks might appear lame and cheap, but they are a fraudster’s manna from the dark reaches of the criminal underworld. The criminals have a ready, fat market waiting for them, sitting within the motherboards of millions of mobile phones and hundreds of electronic bank vaults like lame ducks on a wintry night.
The Economic Survey of 2018 indicates that mobile money transfers totaled Sh1.76 trillion in 2017, from about 600 million transactions previously. Police records show financial institutions lost Sh17 billion to fraudsters in 2016 and Sh14 billion in 2015, but there is no data on amounts lost through mobile money fraud.
Police say the fraudsters are now manipulating victims to reveal the PINs to their mobile money accounts, leading to their depletion of funds in no time. Some cases involve deception, use of technology and fake money to steal from the public and M-Pesa dealers.
“Since it is hard for them to infiltrate the M-Pesa system, they use non-technical methods, or social engineering, as it is popularly known. This involves tricking unsuspecting people into breaking normal security procedures and manipulating them into, among others, revealing their M-Pesa PINs,” said Nakuru County Commissioner George Natembeya.
Ms Mary Nyamoita, an M-Pesa agent in Kivumbini area of Nakuru, says she receives at least 10 complaints every day from customers who have been defrauded as they seek to have the transactions reversed.
Have you recieved calss of such nature and how do you deal with them?