Your phone can protect you from bank fraud

A major revolution experienced in this part of the globe in recent times is the liberalisation of the nation’s telecommunications sector and the advent of mobile phones, popularly known as the GSM. And since GSM technology made its incursion into the nation’s socio-economic space, it has suddenly become part of the nation’s culture, which the average Nigerian cannot do without. “I wonder how we managed to survive in those years without this GSM technology. It has positively turned around a lot of things in Nigeria,” said a mobile phone user at a public forum recently, while talking about the indispensability of the technology today. But as beneficial as GSM is to both individual and corporate life styles, not a few believe that the technology, if not properly channelled, can suddenly become an albatross to its users, especially for most people who have their bank and personal details on their phones. For instance, one of the challenges cyber crime police are currently having today in the western world is that of internet fraud. There are incidents of money being withdrawn from the victims’ bank accounts after obtaining new SIM cards in their names. The fraudsters after accessing their victim’s data such as bank account/credit card/PAN numbers, address, date of birth and mobile phone numbers, prepare a fake PAN card and obtain a new SIM card in the victim’s name. Once the SIM card is issued, the victim’s mobile phone, which has the old SIM card, gets deactivated. This is done to ensure the victim doesn’t receive details of his/her bank account while it is being misused. The victim is shocked that his mobile phone is suddenly disconnected because the fraudster has applied for a new SIM card. Unfortunately, the victim never suspects anything until he checks his bank account only to discover that he has been duped. Though no such frauds have been officially reported in Nigeria, not a few Nigerians believe that there is the need for precautionary moves. And one of those moves to ensure that such crimes are not allowed to berth in the nation’s financial space, some have argued, is through regular monitoring of one’s telephones, especially the ones that carry individuals’ personal details. According to a banker with one of the nation’s new generation banks, the fact that such incidents had not been officially recorded in the nation’s financial sector would not necessarily mean the country is immune to such fraud. “The world has become a global village and just as globalisation has its positives, the negatives are also there,” he stated. He said that the primary reason an individual should insist on getting an alert on his account is to stave off this type of fraud. “Unfortunately, while it is still taking quite an effort on the part of the banks to persuade some of their customers to get this vital sign that tells them of any activity on their accounts, some that even have it don’t take the pains to scrutinise such alerts when they come,” he said. Speaking in the same vein, a retired banker, who now consults for a finance company in Lagos, Ogunbambi Lawson, believes that the average banking customer in this part of the globe is very vulnerable, adding that the only way to protect him is to put up some security measures in place to ward off such sophisticated crime. “This is a country where your phones can be down for hours and even in some cases, for days, either due to network failure or power outage. And all these we have taken as normal. But don’t forget, that period that seems very short and brief to us, can be used to fleece you of money that you have laboured for over the years,” the finance consultant stated. While stressing that such new level of crime should not be taken lightly by the relevant authorities, Lawson believes there is the need for constant customer engagement and enlightenment by the nation’s financial institutions to enable both the banks and their customers develop a common ground to fight crime within the nation’s financial space. He also advocated an improved telephone culture among Nigerians, especially those who transact businesses on their phones and at the same time have vital information there. “Inasmuch as the telephone has become, to some people, a working tool or mobile office, there is the need to develop that culture of constantly monitoring it to protect one’s details against these fraudsters. “Besides, my experience over the years in the banking industry shows that a lot of banking customers do not take the time to study what is being sent to them in form of alerts telling them of activities on their accounts,” he added. While pitching her tent with those clamouring for constant monitoring, a bank customer, Folu, narrated to Saturday Tribune how she nearly lost the sum of N20, 000 in recent times when she had gone to withdraw some funds from the ATM. According to her, she had gone to withdraw the sum of N50,000 from an ATM point somewhere in Opebi-Ikeja. “The first machine I tried my card in didn’t work and I moved to the second one, withdrew the money thrice and left. It was the following day I discovered that my account was debited for the N20,000 I tried to withdraw on the first machine, but which I couldn’t. “The point is, if I had not checked the details the following day, perhaps I would have lost the money. You can imagine if it had been some fraud that was perpetrated on the account, a period of 24 hours was enough for the fraudsters to bolt away without a trace,” she stated.