E-payment is good but …. Learn more about the but

Electronic payment is very good. It makes
life convenient and allows you to achieve
more with less. I remember the long queues
people go through just to pay for satellite T.V
subscriptions. Now you can do the same thing
from your mobile phone, from anywhere in the world. Alternatively you
can use ATM and make the
same payment. Also, with e-payment, you
don't need to go through the stress of going
to the airport or office of travel agencies to
book and pay for flight. You can do this either
from your phone, the internet or from ATM. E-payment has also made
life less stressful
for students, especially those studying in far
places. Gone are the days when you have to
look for somebody traveling home, to help
you visit your parents or guardian to collect
money for you. Parents and guardians can now transfer
money to their wards from their phones,
ATM or the internet, which can be cashed via
ATM at anytime by the student. These and
many more are the benefits of embracing e-
payment for payment of goods and services. These benefits, however,
also come with lots
of risks. Like every other thing in life, e-
payment is not insulated from the nefarious
activities of fraudsters. Hence the risk of losing money, huge amount
of money, is part of the realities of e-
payment.
For example, a woman was in Lagos, and
started receiving SMS alerts of withdrawals
from her bank account, via ATM. Though it was done in Nigeria, the SMS alert
code were disguised to indicate the
withdrawals were been carried out in Ghana.
Within minutes, she lost all the money in her
account to the fraudsters. Another man that
had close to N1 million in his account reserved to take care of
delivery and post
natal expenses when his expectant wife
delivers. By the time he needed the money and tried to
withdraw from his account, the balance in the
account was N700, 000 less than what he
expected. Fraudsters had withdrawn his
money through Point of Sale (PoS) terminal. These are just examples of the many
incidences of how people have lost money
through e-payment channels. Yes, there have
been measures and policies to protect bank
customers from this risk. But the incidence
has not abated. Today, e-payment fraud accounts for the highest number
of frauds in
banks and other financial institutions. You can however escape being a
victim. The
first step is to acknowledge the reality of the
risk of e-payment, and its vulnerabilities to
the activities of fraudsters. Secondly, and
most importantly, you need to be acquainted
with how e-payment fraudsters operate and how to checkmate them.