Telecommunications giant MTN Ghana has stated emphatically that it is impossible for fraudsters to withdraw money from users’ accounts without the customer giving out their information.
This comes in the wake of a viral video and several social media posts reporting that fraudsters had wiped out funds from users’ Mobile Money (MoMo) wallets. In one widely circulated video, a weeping woman claimed that scammers had withdrawn over GHS 11,000 from her accounts, insisting she had never shared her PIN with anyone.
A Facebook user also recounted losing over GHS 13,000—money meant for surgery—from her MoMo wallet. She similarly maintained that she had not disclosed any sensitive information to anyone.
Responding to the claims, the Senior Manager for Anti-Money Laundering, Compliance and Analytics at MTN, Godwin Tamakloe, disputed claims by the fraud victim who alleged her funds vanished while she was asleep.
Following an internal investigation, Tamakloe revealed that the victim was instead duped through a calculated social engineering scam.
“We saw the lady’s video. She said she didn’t do anything and that she was asleep. It’s untrue. That is impossible. From our engagement with her plus our investigation, we realized that she was on a call with the supposed fraudsters for over ten minutes and above.
“The lady also has pictures of SMS that she received and truly, she had one of them that had a link to her mobile money that the fraudsters had sent to her. So these were the processes they took her through and she divulged that same link that was sent to her back to the fraudsters.
“Interestingly, it was that same number that called her that the money went into. You would have been socially engineered to give out information that the fraudster wants to be able to give access to your accounts.”