Beware of that POS terminal, now used to cyber-rob people of their hard earned money
Khalid ABRAHAM
Advertisement
Point of Sale (POS) terminals have revolutionized the world we live in today especially in the area of money handling. It is one of the tools, drivers for the famed cashless economy. It has made money transfers so easy that many have not been in a banking hall or even Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) points for months now. All you do is visit a POS terminal near you and you effect most transactions you carry out at a banking hall or premises. Technological breakthroughs have continued to inspire wonders but they come with tons of cons.
However, POS terminals, highly effective in electronic fund transfers, are now being targeted for exploration by the cyber thieves otherwise robed as “Yahoo boys” or internet fraudsters.
A middle-aged man who gave his name simply as Mr. Adesile recounted the bitter spill he tasted from internet fraudsters Wednesday while speaking with ogbomosoinsightonline.com.
According to him, he was relaxing at home Wednesday evening when his mobile phone beeped. He checked, thinking it was a message alert. “But I was aghast,” Mr. Adesile began. “I was rather confronted with a debit of N1,000. As I was wondering what could have happened, then, I heard pim, pim, again, another N7000 was deducted and then N20, 000, and so, the whole N28, 000 in my account was withdrawn. I almost collapsed.”
He added that the money was part of a contribution in his church which he must remit this weekend and to complete the payment of his son’s NECO fees.
He quickly informed some of his friends, he disclosed further, and he was told by someone who operates a cafe, that it must have been perpetrated by internet fraudsters.
“The guy told me that POS terminals now come with scanners with which vital information can be scanned from one’s credit card (ATM card), which will be retrieved later to launch a cyber financial attack on the victim’s bank account. I learned from my friend that such money illegally withdrawn is usually to purchase items online and truly all I saw in the transaction detail is ‘webpurchase.’ I was devastated.”
He further informed that he rushed to the bank in the morning of Thursday to lodge a complaint but the bank staffer who attended to him, a lady, after checking the record of his transactions affirmed that it was the handiwork of cyber criminals. “She explained it must have been perpetrated via my transaction at a POS terminal, which I did last on Monday earlier this week. When she checked she even stated that the fraudsters next tried to deduct N50, 000 but there was no money in the account again.”
Advertisement
And it is difficult to trace the perpetrators because the transaction detail only contains “webpurchase” as beneficiary of the transfer.
A security officer who spoke with Ogbomoso Insight on the matter noted people need to be wary of the people that own the POS terminals they patronize, adding, “To trace such money, what will be expended will be more than N28, 000 as an instance, so, it is better the victim accepts his fate and change his ATM card.“
