By Richieson Gyeni-Boateng
I used to have a colleague who defrauded the company we used to work with to the tune of GH¢275,000 using the company’s momo wallet.
When investigated, it came out that the said staff was a victim of reversed advance payment fraud and along the line greed took a better part of her.
We realized this kind of fraud was new and most people could be vulnerable as this kind of scam is built on trust.
This article is meant to throw more light on the modus operandi of this type of fraud scheme and how the public can be alert about it.
As to how these criminals get their victims’ contact details is something I am yet to know but they send their victims a message (usually on telegram), introducing an online part-time job to the victim.
All the victim must do is to like or review a product and/ or service online and get pay for that. Who doesn’t like extra income?
When the victim agrees to do the work, the criminal then sends the first task to perform. When completed, payment is made to the momo number the victim provides. This is to build trust with their victims and this continues for a while.
The criminal, in trying to build trust, add their victims to a chat group where other people are sharing their testimonies. This is meant to convince the victim about the genuineness of the activities of the criminal.
In the course of the activities/ tasks being performed, the criminal then introduces the victims to what they call the “welfare commission scheme”.
This is where people send an amount of money to the criminal and the criminal pays back with a commission within 20-30 minutes. Example, if you pay Gh¢500, Gh¢750 is paid back to you.
At this point other people within the group will be sharing their testimonies by displaying how much they “invested” and got in return. The criminal will keep on building trust with their victims by paying these commissions.
After building the victim’s trust level and portfolio to a certain amount, the criminal will then ask the victim to invest a huge amount. That will be end of the victim once the money is sent. The criminal will vanish into thin air and all efforts to trace the criminal will hit a dead end.
This is what happened to my colleague and he ended up behind bars and his employment contract terminated. The rest, they say, is history.
There following warning signs are some of the things to look out for when dealing with people you don’t know but sends you message to perform one task or the other.
The number one red flag with this type of scheme is the fact that the telephone numbers of these criminals on telegram are hidden.
Another red flag is that the group the victim is added to, the victim cannot post anything, but the “others” can post.
Pressuring the victim to partake in the welfare commission scheme is another red flag. The victim is informed that this scheme is voluntary, however the criminal will put pressure on the victim to join as the victim is losing out on great opportunities.
These job offers are too good to be true as your suppose part time job salary or commission is more than that of your full time job.
In order to help thwart the activities of these criminals, proper due diligence/ Know Your Customer (KYC) need to be performed by the Telcos on who actually own these telephone numbers they sell out to the public. The information obtained should be verified before full activation of the service is granted.
I totally support the call by the Minister of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovation for a new sim reregistration exercise. This will help the law enforcement agencies to carry out effective and thorough investigation in identifying the criminals.
The mobile money companies should have a robust transaction monitoring solution (if they don’t already have) equipped with AI functionalities. This will enable these companies to track and block any suspicious/ unusual transaction on momo wallets before the criminal can get access to the funds.
Continuous training and awareness creation should be intensified by cautioning the public against these kinds of fraudulent schemes.
People need to know that there are no free lunches anywhere in the world and need to verify every word (if possible) that comes out of peoples’ mouth.
Would you mind doing me a favor? Share this article with someone so that the awareness of these fraud schemes could be spread to avoid being use as a conduit by criminals.
If you require further information on this article, please contact Richieson @[email protected]
