These are the common numbers used by fraudsters in the mobile banking industry

Some Kenyans have devised a new form of illegal self-employment. The new form of employment is “conning.” In most cases they rob people out of their hard earned cash while acting as members large well known organizations in Kenya. These organizations might include: Safaricom, Airtel or even Equity Bank.

In Kenya currently, this practice is on the rise and before being conned then you are not safe. Some act as Safaricom customer care and then they seek to confirm your personal details from their “system” and then at the end do a sim swap. After doing the sim swap they steal all your money from your M-pesa and even borrow more from your M-shwari account if you have any.

The most common one is the one for the famous Equity bank. They keep on sending to people messages on their Equitel lines while acting as loaning agents. They always send to people messages in different formats. The following is the most common format.

EQUITY BANK Dear customer, your line has qualified for EQUITY SOFT LOAN of Ksh. 50,000 to Ksh. 500,000 @ 0.05% interest rate. For more information call or text 0780112058

There are so many numbers that they use and some of them include: 0780006074, 0780009320, 0780000378, 0780112058, 0780058690, 0780926253, 0788897018, 0772515519, 0776507252 and 0750265818.

If you do a mistake of calling or texting them, they will steal from you without you knowledge. They will give you instructions to follow. If you follow them you will realize that you have sent to them all your money and that your account balance is low. After performing the transaction, it will be hard to find them on the line. Their lines will have be switched off. If you go to the bank seeking for a reversal, you will realize that the money had been withdrawn long time ago.

There are so many questions that remains unanswered. How do they get the Equitel numbers of members of equity bank? Do they guess numbers at random and send to them these fraudulent messages or do they hack into the banks system to get the numbers? Or is it an inside job colluding with some members of staff? And why mostly use Airtel service provider and not any other service provider?

Some actions needs to be taken, there might be so many people who might have fallen victims like me through the same scheme. The bank needs to increase security measure because very soon most people will deserts banks since they will consider banks as avenues for losing money to the fraudsters. Equity bank needs to incorporate what Safaricom has of confirming the name of the person before the money is sent to avoid sending money to the fraudsters.

The security agencies should look into this matter with utmost concern. They need to track down these people because there are so many Kenyans who are crying in silence. If some of them can be got and arrested, it can act as a very good example to the many people who might in the future want to involve in the same kind of heinous practice.