“We knew when to strike end of the month, school opening days, and festive seasons when people had money,” he explains. “Our only weapon was a phone, and after making a kill, we would celebrate in clubs, buy motorcycles, and build houses.”
It seems every week I read a news article about Mulot’s notorious mobile money thieves like this one from The Star.
Services like M-Pesa and Airtel Money have revolutionized commerce and daily transactions in Kenya, making cashless payments a norm. Alongside these conveniences, mobile fraud is on the rise, with criminals using scams to steal money from unsuspecting victims.
Articles are written. Articles are read. The frauds continue.
Frauds used to be simple, as the article states:
Masquerading as customer care representatives from telecommunications and banking corporations, [fraudsters would] manipulate victims into revealing personal details such as account passwords and verification codes.
In the recent past, mobile money fraud has expanded from phone calls to social media scams, where criminals create fake business deals and investment opportunities to dupe victims. Fraudsters are ambitious and creative — they leverage any and every method and platform they can in order to meet their goals. I wish I could say the same about mobile money service providers.
The article recommends that authorities should increase efforts to combat fraud, push for more robust cybersecurity measures, amnesty programs for fraudsters, and employment opportunities for youth.
Religious leaders have also joined the call for reform, urging the government to establish amnesty and rehabilitation programmes for convicted fraudsters.
Methinks the clergy should sit this one out. Honestly.
Cases of SIM swap fraud and identity theft in places like Thika and Nairobi demonstrate that mobile money fraud is a widespread issue requiring stricter regulations. We have been saying that for ages. M-Pesa recently turned 18. Other telcos launched mobile money shortly after in various African countries. Airtel Money and MTN Money services have been in operation for 16 years. These are overgrown teenagers! Where are the protective systems, processes, and controls?
Close to two decades later, banks and telecom companies continuously warn customers to safeguard their financial details, never share PINs, and report suspicious activities to prevent financial losses. How well has that worked? It is clearly insufficient.
Allow me to theorize.
- Telcos know that nothing will happen to them even if mobile money fraud remains a problem. So, just focus on chasing market share and EBITDA. There are only so many hours in a day.
- The amount lost per customer may be a big deal to the customer — it might even be their lifetime savings — but for the telco, this is insignificant. Sure, there are impacts on image but soft measures such as customer satisfaction, brand and reputation are not really important. Mobile money, in some cases, is contributing 50% of service revenue. It is a big chunk all right but fraud is not exactly chipping away at it in a speedy manner.
- The likelihood of being defrauded is inversely proportional to the socio-economic standing of the victim. These are folks on the lower rungs of the economy. They do not have government ministers on speed dial. They cannot even submit an article to Commsrisk. They are on their own, until some obscure journalist from The Star (or an even more obscure rag) decides to collect a few anecdotes.
- Telcos can issue glossy reports about their financial performance and sustainability efforts that show them as model corporate citizens. There is no space dedicated to the horror stories from the victims of fraud. It is the silence of the lambs.
- Mobile money technology has cemented its place as an enabler of financial inclusion. Everybody talks about this. Nobody wants to make noise about the other accidental inclusion — we have also succeeded in including the economically disadvantaged citizenry in a victims’ cesspit.
I imagine myself confronting the CEO of a telco with these theories. He would launch into a tirade like the one delivered by Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) in the movie A Few Good Men.
Son, we live in a world that has revenue targets, and those revenue targets have to be delivered by guys and gals who are fluent in corporate lingo. Who’s gonna deliver the numbers? You? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for some suckers who got relieved of a few dollars, and you curse the C-suite. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know — that such scams, while tragic, do not feature in my top 3 to 5 items; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, delights shareholders. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who uses his smartphone late into the night, enjoying the high speed data network that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather that you just said “thank you” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a cost centre. Either way, I don’t give a DAMN what you think you, and those minions, are entitled to!
I would slink off to pen my next article.
