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Financial education
Mobile-money fraud works by creating urgency so you act before you think. The patterns are predictable — and once you know them they stop working.
Mobile-money fraud almost never involves breaking anything technical. It works by getting you to authorise the transaction, usually by manufacturing enough urgency that you act before you think.
Once you can recognise the patterns, most of them stop working.
Never give your PIN to anyone. Ever. For any reason.
Not to someone from the network. Not to a police officer. Not to an agent. Not to your group's treasurer. Not to a relative on the phone.
No legitimate organisation will ever ask for your PIN, because no legitimate organisation needs it. Any request for it — however official, however urgent — is fraud. There are no exceptions to learn.
A message says you have won a promotion or lottery. To claim it you must pay a fee, or share a code, or confirm your PIN.
Real promotions do not require you to send money to receive money. If you did not enter anything, you did not win anything.
You receive a message that looks like money arriving, then a call: "I sent it to you by mistake, please send it back."
The original message was fake. Send "back" what you never received and the loss is entirely yours. Check your actual balance through your own menu — not the message, which anyone can forge.
An urgent message from a family member's number, or a slightly different number: an accident, an arrest, a hospital, send money now.
Call the person back on the number you already have saved. If you cannot reach them, call someone else who knows them. This scam works entirely on the fear that checking wastes time you do not have.
At an agent point, someone offers to assist with the menu — and either watches your PIN or changes the amount or recipient while holding your phone.
Do your own transaction. Do not let anyone hold your phone. Shield the keypad.
A caller claims your account has a problem and they need to verify your identity, then asks for your PIN or a code sent to your phone.
Hang up. Call the network on the number printed on their official materials — never a number the caller gave you.
Every pattern above depends on speed. "Right now." "Before it closes." "She is in hospital." "The offer expires today."
Urgency exists to prevent the ten seconds of thought that would end the attempt.
Move quickly — recovery chances fall by the hour.
If you handle group money, you are a more valuable target than an individual member.
