MTN Renews Fight against Fraudsters

MTN has again alerted its subscribers to the activities of fraudsters who are currently contacting unsuspecting subscribers across the country in attempts to dupe them.
Wale Goodluck, corporate services executive, MTN Nigeria said that fraudsters seeking to dupe members of the public have progressed from sending text messages to calling up unsuspecting subscribers, and informing them they have won cash and other gifts.
 In addition, unsuspecting members of the public are being asked to part with some form of consideration in the form of cash or airtime, in order to redeem their gifts. In many instances, victims have also been asked to provide personal and financial information.
It will be recalled that this is the second press conference this year that MTN Nigeria has called to address this issue.
“This is a new twist to existing fraudulent schemes wherein certain individuals rely on text messages to attempt to con unsuspecting subscribers out of their money. Calls are now being made, usually with withheld numbers by these individuals who are intent on luring subscribers to part with money or credit or give out information that can be used to dupe them,” said Akingbade.
He said the company had received a growing number of queries from subscribers seeking to find out the authenticity of such calls, emails and texts by people masquerading as MTN officials. “We wish to tell our valued customers that they should not fall prey to the antics of these fraudsters,” Goodluck said.
MTN officials, he stressed, would not request subscribers to send credit to them as part of the procedure for redeeming prizes won in a promotion. “Our officials will not ask you for personal information such as your account number, bank name and ATM number or PIN in order to process your winning in any of our promos,” he said.
According to him, MTN places high premium on the safety and well-being of its numerous subscribers and is committed to protecting them from the illegal activities of the con artists. “We are working with security operatives in the country to tackle this challenge. But more importantly, we have put in place a number of measures, including radio jingles in the three major languages and pidgin English, SMS warnings to our customers and advertorials in the national papers, to sensitize subscribers to this development and raise awareness level in order to ensure that these fraudsters are not successful in their illegal business. That is the best way to stop them.”
Bola Akingbade, chief marketing officer, on his part stressed that MTN as a matter of policy does not send text messages to winners of its promos, adding that instead; promo winners are usually called and directed to the nearest MTN office to redeem their prizes. In addition, he said the names of winners are published in national newspapers and on the company’s official website - www.mtnonline.com. He stressed that the company would never request any consideration, personal or bank information from any member of the public as a condition for receiving a prize.
According to Kola Oyeyemi, general manager, Brand and Consumer Marketing, MTN will not be discouraged by these criminal activities and will continue to launch various promotions in order to ‘reward and delight’ its customers. He however cautioned that the public should pay close attention to the conditions of each promotion and only respond to invitations to MTN offices.