Bank Fraud Alert

Last week Thursday, I received a call early in the morning from someone claiming to be from my bank and requesting my BVN and other relevant information because it was needed to confirm and validate my account details so as to prevent my account from being suspended.

I was almost falling for it because the caller called the line I provided to the bank during the account opening process but on a second thought, I asked myself why will they request such sensitive information over the phone and not through a secure site or in person at the banking hall.

I politely told the caller that I would visit the bank the following day to sort out the issues myself. His cool mien changed immediately and he tried putting pressure on me and reminding me that I stood the chance of losing my account and it would be very difficult for me reactivating it coupled with the attendant inconvenience that would follow. I immediately dropped the call but he called back again and I calmly told him I know this is a scam and I am not that gullible.

The reason I was able to discern that it was a fraudulent call was simply because of the several warnings from several banks through various means and platforms on social media.

The crux of this write-up is that there is a segment of bank customers who are not privileged to have this info that helped me avoid ‘stories that touch’. This group of customers are the ‘internet-shy’, computer illiterates, semi-illiterates, illiterates, those without smart phones and/or computers and those without internet access among others.

Campaigns should be developed to as well cover this group of people either through personal contacts by reaching out to them in their places of work/business or other places like religious gatherings, socail gatherings/functions, radio and TV campaigns and other means deemed necessary and effective otherwise the scam will keep rising, recording hits back to back and customers will be at the receiving end. People are gradually growing their trusts in the formal banking industry and dumping the crude and old fashioned methods, so banks should do well to encourage them and not give them good reasons to go back to their past methods.

Contributions, comments and rejoinders are welcome.