Rhipple Media: Cybercrime: Online Payment Fraud

Online fraud is no longer new in this part of the globe, especially with the continued introduction of various technologies designed to make payment transactions seamless for the highly mobile and increasingly impatient public.

But, what is new about online payment is that it is becoming a channel the unsuspecting banking customer or individual can be fleeced off his hard-earned money by internet fraudsters. The strategies they adopt are always different, but the mission is the same: to deprive unsuspecting Nigerians or individuals of their hard-earned money.

It is common, nowadays, to suddenly find a mail in your box, purportedly from a friend, apologising profusely about his failure to inform you of his travelling arrangements to one of the foreign countries. Unfortunately, he lost his wallet and could not meet some of his urgent needs over there.

He would need some financial assistance from you, in hard currency of course, while assuring you of his commitment to offset the bill immediately he set his feet there. He provides you with some details that would facilitate the payment, through money transfer, to enable him meet those urgent needs.

Interestingly, while this method is fast becoming obsolete since such mails have become commonplace, another strategy being adopted now is in form of an invitation to a global conference.

Narrating his experience recently, a Nigerian, who fell victim recently told Banking how he had received a mail inviting him for a global conference in the United States of America and Senegal. According to the mail, entitled “Global Conference Invitation – U.S.A 2012,” the recipient was invited by The Global International Youth Foundation (G.I.Y.F) to attend its forthcoming International Conference on Child Abuse, Racism and Human Trafficking and Problems of Youth Unemployment, scheduled for November 20-23, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States and November 27-30, 2012 in Dakar, Senegal.

”I was asked to contact John Brown at the Information Desk of the organisation to fill the necessary papers that would facilitate my travel arrangements. Though, I had not heard of that foundation’s name before, but I was told somebody suggested my name and that I should inform them at the registration desk that I was a special guest to a certain Miss Patricia Douglas, a staff member of the foundation.

“To make it look authentic, I was told that the organising committee would be responsible for the air tickets, visas and lodging throughout my stay in the United States and would do the same in Dakar. They, however, stated that I would be responsible for my accommodation in Dakar as a way of allaying fears at the US embassy that such delegates would not abscond in the United States, since it is a two-legged conference.

“At the registration desk, I was given the name of the hotel where the conference would be taking place to enable me book my accommodation online, collect a receipt and forward a copy of the receipt to them; since that was part of the requirements needed at the embassy to obtain my travel documents.

“Surprisingly, when contacted, the hotel responded by giving me the prices of its facilities, while leaving me to make my choice. I opted for a single room of 65 euro and paid for three days. It was after I had made the payment through the Rapid Money Transfer and no receipt was forthcoming that I sensed I must have been duped,” he stated.

According to him, “what really baffled me was that I never knew anybody could have gone to that length, just with that aim of duping. Everything about the conference was convincing. Even the details sent to me, into which the transfer was done, looked so real that it could not be faulted. Even the teller at the point of payment confirmed that the details were authentic. Honestly we are really in trouble!”

But a banker with one of the nation’s first generation banks noted that such unfortunate incidents would continue to happen until Nigerians began to be more cautious in the way online messages are handled.

“It is too dangerous to interact with a faceless group to the extent of even paying money into their account. As good as all these various payment channels are, they also make us vulnerable. But my advice is that we must always watch out for that online transaction; since that faceless individual or foundation you are dealing with could fleece you of your hard-earned money,” he counselled.

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