Thanks Muchoki - there are aware of such recourse. And while its good to have a fraud line its better to take action to prevent the fraud taking place thus my two queries: 1 - Can user privacy be assured somehow when signing for a deposit 2 - Can unregistred numbers be de-activated ASAP On a different note - it would be interesting to know from your fraud unit how many such cases are reported and what percentage are prosecuted - that will lead back to whether its not more important to protect uninformed folk from these tricksters by deactivating unregistered lines and, as an industry, devising new ways to ensure users security/integrity/privacy. Having a fraud line will not deal with the end game. Very soon it will be a form of armed robbery where a depositor is is marked by a mole who signals (SMS) to an accomplice or accomplices to trail and accost the depositor. If the above two were addressed, then mobile money becomes safe once again...for a while perhaps. If I may put it differently - I'd rather own six security dogs and barricade myself in the house than have a false sense of security by the mere presence of a police post 100 meters away - if they caught enough burglars and patrolled more I'd relax knowing something is being done about it. Right now I cannot. Likewise mobile money users who are becoming aware of this new form of trickery. On , Safaricom Support <Support@safaricom.co.ke> wrote:
Hi
Kindly advise them to forward the texts to '333' which is to our Mpesa Fraud team for further investigation.
Regards
Muchoki
From: kictanet-bounces+support=safaricom.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+support=safaricom.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Francis.Hook@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 3:38 PM
To: Safaricom Support
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: [kictanet] problem inherent in how mobile money transactions aredone
I have a colleague who received a rather suspect SMS that, at first glance seemed to advise of money rcvd from someone and a few minutes later someone called to say he had sent the money and error and has a crisis of sorts and would like the money sent back. I have seen this twice. Tricksters at work.
When using mobile money I have always wondered about the privacy of such transactions since one is required to sign a sheet with details of the transactions - details which are clearly visible to everyone. I note both ZAP and Mpesa have such sheets. It would only take a keen eye to quickly pick out a number next to a high value, memorise it - under the pretext of doing a small transaction and then claim a victim within hours of the person depositing money into their account.
I suppose unregistered mobile numbers must now be de-activated ASAP.
Be on the look out.
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