Mobile Money fraud has become a petty criminal running game in the streets of Ghana’s cashless transactions world. From small-time amateurs to sophisticated professionals and syndicates, some people are deciding to go into that criminal act as a pastime, or as a profession.
The perpetrators spare no one in their quest to make money. However, while that is true, they have a special demographic or class of people they aim their scams at. In today’s article, we will learn about the top 3 target victims of mobile money fraudsters so, stick around; there’s a lot to find out.
Top target victims of mobile money fraudsters
Criminals, in general, are like fishermen. They love to cast their nets wide in order to make a large, sizeable catch. After a while, and having found out which type of fish command high prices at the markets, they decide to specialize in catching that particular type. This means that they must sail for the parts of the sea where their preferred fish can be found in abundance; making their work easy and their catch abundant.
The same strategy is employed in identifying the top target victims of Mobile Money fraudsters; a few general attacks in the beginning, and then later, they specialize on the ones who can guarantee them money. Below are their top targets:
MoMo agents
Believe it or not, Mobile Money agents themselves also fall victim to the MoMo fraudsters’ schemes. How can that be possible? Well, there is something known as the ‘use cases‘. With the ‘use cases‘ scam, the fraudsters approach the MoMo agents – posing as authorized field agents of MTN — under the pretext of teaching them revised shortcodes and wrongful transaction reversal steps.
If the agent happens to be naive or inexperienced, they will obediently follow through with the steps — only to realize a little too late that the supposed MTN field operatives have defrauded them and their accounts cleared.
The MoMo agents are top targets, victims of Mobile Money fraudsters because they receive a lot of deposits in one business day, so, a successful operation would mean lots of money for the scammers.
The unsophisticated elderly
The MoMo fraudsters love this demographic because of their need to be assisted at every turn — during a transaction — by a 3rd party. Usually, these elders even go to the extent of letting their ‘helpers’ know what their Mobile Money PIN is; essentially taking away all hopes of keeping their account secure.
For such persons, there is no way of them keeping track of their account balance. And the one in control of their account can make as many personal withdrawals as possible without being found out.
It is important to educate your elders — especially those living in the rural areas — about how to keep their accounts and funds secure; lest the monthly allowance you’ve been sending becomes someone else’s pocket money.
Online shoppers and businesses
The final group to close out our top 3 target victims of mobile money fraudsters is the online shoppers and (or) business owners. At one point or another, we’ll all find ourselves belonging to either one or both of these categories.
Shoppers have suffered the most when it comes to this. A lot fall for fantastic discounts only to receive faulty appliances or items that in no way look like what they paid for. In fact, some receive no items at all; the scammers take their money, and that is the end.
While online businesses may not suffer from Mobile Money fraud as often as individual shoppers do, some find themselves losing money in a similar fashion to how the MoMo agents get defrauded as mentioned earlier.
All the aforementioned are target victims of Mobile Money fraudsters because they handle a lot of cash flow on any given day. And in relation to the fisherman analogy used in the beginning, there is plenty of fish in those seas.
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This article on the top 3 target victims of mobile money fraudsters is part of a series JBKlutse.com is developing to educate the public about Mobile Money fraudsters, their activities, and how to stay vigilant and not be a victim.
source https://www.jbklutse.com/target-victims-of-mobile-money-fraudsters/
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