In recent times and with the booming of the mobile money business, scammers looking to take advantage of it have risen in huge numbers.
Over the years they have developed different kinds of scams which they use to try and dupe the unsuspecting customer, and one of their most long running ones has been the ‘mistaken deposit’ scam.
The scam simply involves calling a mobile money customer, telling them they have mistakenly deposited some cash in your account and then ask you to send it back.
The idea is that an honest person would be so worried about taking someone else’s money that they’ll send it back as fast as they can.
Sometimes it works and most times it does not, but they keep trying it all the same.
Earlier today I had an experience with these scammers which I painstakingly documented – the approach, how I (easily) figured them out and how to do so if they try it on you as well.
Read my full post on the incident below…
So some idiot scammer just tried one of those stupid mobile money scams on me this hot afternoon.
Was busy working when this guy’s call interrupted my hotspot, and I pick up only for him to tell me he’s mistakenly sent money onto my phone and I should do well to send it back.
Now immediately I hear this alarm bells ring in my head, remembering I’ve heard a lot about this scam, but then I’ve also been receiving money all day so I thought it possible perhaps it had mixed into the messages and I missed it, therefore I asked him the amount (he said 150) and I promised to check.
Immediately I hung up I received a message of having received some miraculous Ghc 150. First alarm bell of course is that the message wasn’t part of my normal mobile money chain but was just a simple sms from this doofus. Second alarm bell is that these idiots can’t even spell right, misspelling even simple words like received, current, balance. etc.
Immediately I noticed the scam I decided to ignore this guy, continue working but also patiently waiting for his inevitable call to see if he had ‘hooked’ me and I was willing to dash him Ghc 150 in this hot Ghana.
He called after about five minutes and immediately I said ‘massa’ in my deepest voice he hung up and run faster than KOD from the feminist masses. Which really pissed me off because I was all ready to threaten him with exposing his a$$, seeing as I’m a member of the mass media and all that. After which I would have said ‘WMT wai’.
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Now if any of these guys try their scam on you, simply check the ‘message’ they send and you’ll have them. Never be in a hurry to send back any money and be sure the message is a legit mobile money transaction.
Finally, if that number calls you (0554140596), give them my regards.
