Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. This 78-page report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services” (March, 2015) examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions.
Unwary Customers Hit by M-PESA Money Transfer Scam Attempts
Not surprisingly, common scams have hit the mobile money transfer services, such as M-PESA. The usual scam involves the receipt of money, confirmed by a fake SMS purportedly from M-PESA. The scammer then says the transfer was a mistake, and asks for the money to be returned, or forwarded to the intended recipient.
Andrew Muchira, who was taking a rest at home received a text message — nothing out of the ordinary, he would have thought. But then it was a message supposedly from M-PESA telling him that he had received Sh8,000 from a certain Mr Waititu. Besides the fact that he did not know anyone by that name, what peeked his interest, was his ‘new’ balance. It was Sh8,000, yet he recalled transacting with his M-Pesa account the previous day and leaving a balance of Sh2,000.
It should read Sh10,000, he thought, then became suspicious — he was being conned, he concluded and decided to play along with the con-man.
via allAfrica.