Dear Odhiambo,

I've been interviewing a few M-Pesa agents recently and it seems that often the M-Pesa scams can be very sophisticated. One of the most common ones is when an agent is visited or called by 'technical support' and asked to type in a number on their phone which supposedly upgrades their phones and reduces congestion on their M-Pesa line. Unbeknown to them they are transferring M-Pesa to a particular number. Other scams involve some social engineering, whether that be a distressed women who claims to have been robbed, or a fake Safaricom rep - both who will ask to use the M-Pesa phone and then transfer.

On the sim registration process, my guess is that it is on the way back up the agenda! In the last few weeks Safaricom seems to have been promoting this again (presumably as an approach to tackle the recently sharp increase in M-Pesa fraud, which has been discussed on this list) and if you go into a SC dealer shop, you are very likely to see some recently distributed Sim registration posters and leaflets around.

Thanks
Chris
-- 
Christopher Foster
PhD Researcher, Centre for Development Informatics (CDI)
University of Manchester, UK

Mob: 0738 101 723
Mob (uk): +44 (0)7751 537350
Skype: cgfoster



On 24/03/11 09:11, kris njoroge wrote:
Saw the same piece last night and was wondering the same, thought that it would be so easy to catch this guys, like once they leave the robbed Mpesa agent the agent makes a call and the transaction is reversed. They could get away with not getting caught but would not have the money so would deter them from doing it again.

The sim registration process was all a hoodwink or a quick get rich scheme by someone, don't know how but think so. Why would they start something and then not enforce it? Maybe someone in the know could enlighten us all. Thought the days of mobile crime were long gone?
-- 
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't. - Emerson M. Pugh




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