Hurtful Kindness

pesapThis one plays on your human traits like sympathy. Someone approaches you and tells that he/she doesn’t have a phone or hasn’t registered as an M-PESA user. The person is usually a kid, sick-looking or someone you can sympathize with.

He requests if he can use your registered M-PESA number to receive money from someone else. Out of sympathy, you agree. Now the catch….you will get a genuine M-PESA message on your phone with an accurate account balance. You can choose to withdraw the money via an agent and give it to the person or if you had some cash in your wallet, you can choose to leave the amount in your phone.

The con part…the person who sent the money to you so that you can give out to the other person calls Safaricom customer care and informs them that he sent money to an unintended number i.e. “your number” and wants the money reversed back to his M-PESA Account. Normally, once Safaricom receives such a call they will check your account and reverse it normally to some sort of reserve account for 72 hours. But one thing for sure money will be out of your account.

As a formality, Safaricom will call you to ascertain the details of that transaction and believe me proving that you had an informal arrangement will be difficult.
To beat this scam, it’s simple. Simply avoid allowing someone you don’t know to transact using your M-PESA Number .As for unregistered numbers, M-PESA allows for money to be sent to unregistered numbers only that it costs slightly more than the standard transaction charges, advice the person as such.

Doing so will save you a lot. If you feel suspicious about anything you can call the M-PESA Customer Care on 234.
M-PESA keeps growing everyday and as other systems integrate into it, the more we will see these scams.

Copyright :BiasharaPoint blog

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