Be wary of mobile money fraudsters who target your bank accounts – MTN cautions public

Mobile telephony giant, MTN has cautioned members of the public to be wary of mobile money scammers who target their Bank accounts.

Mobile Money executive, Mr Godwin Tamakloe told a group of journalists during an interaction this week that some fraudsters, who call mobile money account holders, succeed in guiding them to generate ATM tokens which they use to withdraw money from their bank accounts through the ATM.

He said there were other forms of mobile money fraud including popup messages that trick customers into entering their PIN and extortion through emotional scam, fake kidnapping, romance scam, sextortion, blackmail and emotional scam.

Mr Tamakloe said despite these challenges, the service has made a positive impact in the lives of Ghanaians with about GH¢3.8 billion saved and transferred since the service was introduced in the country about 11 years ago.

He said MTN is working with the police to address the threat of scammers and indicated that since the beginning of the year MTN has arrested 13 mobile money fraudsters and indicated that MTN was in discussion with the police to publish the names of the people who have been arrested.

“Our management has written to the head of the police in that direction; we are still appealing to the police,” he stated.
He indicated that efforts to address the threat seem to be working well as this year there has been a reduction in the cases of mobile money fraud cases and the number of failed attempts.

He said this year, so far, a monthly average of about 380 phone numbers used for mobile money fraud had been blocked compared to last year’s monthly average of about 900.