Criminal activity by scammers and armed robbers is hitting point-of-sale operators and customers in Niger State and Federal Capital Territory ‘hard’.
An investigation by PRNigeria revealed that scammers use “criminal strategies” to rob the providers.
Sometimes posing as PoS operators, the criminals also obtain ATM card details from people using their PoS devices and empty bank accounts in a matter of hours or days.
Abdulrazaq Siraja, an information technology graduate from the Federal University of Technology, Minna, recalled an incident where two “scammers” scammed him.
Siraja, who runs his PoS “business” with the help of a young lady he hired to work for him, told PRNigeria that he lost a huge amount of money to the two scammers who made fake cash transactions with Chika Nwendi, the female agent, conducted his PoS business.
Siraja said: “Sometime in January last year, two boys came to my PoS kiosk to deposit N100,000 into another account.
“It was my salesman who helps me manage the PoS business who took care of them.
“She got a wad of N1,000 notes.
“She confirmed the money and noticed that the money was incomplete.
“Then she gave them the money back for confirmation.”
“The guys gave her a similar bundle of N100,000 from N1,000.
“After counting and confirming the amount of money, Nwendi put the bundle of N1,000 in her drawer and then they (the boys) left my shop.
“But a few hours later, reality dawned on her when she wanted to review her daily transactions.
“Nwendi discovered that the wad of N1,000 notes also contained N100 notes.
“What the guys cleverly did was cover up the inside of the N1,000 bills they gave my PoS agent.
“They put an N1,000 note on top and bottom of the bundle of N100,000 they gave my PoS agent.
“Then there were only N100 bills in the middle of the bundle.”
As it turned out, Siraja reported the incident to First Bank of Nigeria manager Suleja Branch, who asked him to send pictures of the money (brought by the two scammers) and an affidavit to the court so that he (the bank manager) Freezing the account where Siraja deposited money for the scammers.
A few days later, it was discovered that the bank account to which Siraja had transferred the N100,000 (for the scammers) belonged to another PoS operator in Kano.
He added: “Over there in Kano, another PoS provider called Musa Aminu has sounded the alarm that his bank account has been frozen.
“Aminu then visited the bank and was informed about the fraudulent transaction on his account from my own page in Suleja.
“The two guys who cheated on Aminu in Kano worked with the two guys who also cheated on my PoS agent in Suleja.
“After the first two guys managed to cheat on my PoS girl, their partners in Kano went to Aminu’s PoS booth.
“They told him their uncle wanted to send them money to buy some things there in Kano.
“Aminu gave them his account number.
“And within a short period of time he received an alert for N100,000.
“He gave them the cash and removed his transaction fees.”
When Siraja and Aminu saw that nothing could be done to recover the “stolen” money, Siraja and Aminu were instructed by the Suleja branch’s First Bank manager to share the “loss” together.
The PoS operator in Kano was asked to give Siraja N50,000 while he (Siraja) will raise N37,000 for himself as all the money they (the two scammers) gave his PoS store clerk was N13. 000 fraud.
PRNigeria has also found that many PoS customers have experienced a situation where the money in their bank accounts went “empty” after patronizing some PoS providers.
PR Nigeria.
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