Zakariyya Adaramola
6 September 2008
(Page 2 of 2)
He said this led Interswitch and some banks recently to hold a series of awareness campaigns to guard against internet and ATM-related fraud. Interswitch Nigeria Limited and banks on its network inaugurated an awareness campaign to protect ATM card holders against fraudsters and to educate the masses on the payment card in the country.
It would be recalled that over the last few months there have been various messages requesting cardholders to register their debit, credit or cash card details under the guise of participating in non-existent promotions or with the promise of winning bogus prizes.
These phony messages are circulated through internet and telephone. In some cases the messages claim a network upgrade by the bank or Interswitch has affected the performance of cards, and then requests the cardholders to re-register their cards and personal identification numbers (PINs) on a re-directed website or phone number.
In similar instances, cardholders have fallen victims to nefarious activities having divulged their PINs voluntarily to friends and family, not understanding the importance of keeping their PIN numbers secret.
Investigations into these isolated incidents reveal a lack of awareness about payment cards and the need to protect PIN at all times.
But inaugurating the cardholders' awareness campaign in Lagos, the Managing Director of Interswitch, Mr. Mitchell Elegbe, explained that the main objective of the campaign scheduled to run on radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards is to protect cardholders from fraudsters, who temper with ATM cards' PINs in order to have access to cardholders banks' accounts.
According to Mr. Elegbe, the joint campaign between Interswitch and participating banks, has been designed to also create awareness on card usage without generating unnecessary panic in the minds of cardholders and to also enlighten them of channels on which their cards can be used other than just cash withdrawals at ATMs.
His words: "With the introduction of payment cards in the country, adoption of all forms of electronic payment channels ranging from the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), point of Sales (POS) terminals, kiosk, voice, Internet Banking and Mobile Banking have been on a steady rise. The rapid growth in card adoption and usage only goes to indicate the potentials of well-orchestrated nefarious activities targeted at not only the unsuspecting cardholders but also the banks. Whilst instances where cardholders have fallen victims to these activities represent far less than one per cent of all transactions, they have raised fears amongst current and potential cardholders as to the security of the cardholder and payment done using cards. And that is why we are inaugurating a cardholder's awareness campaign to protect them from fraudsters."
He called on law enforcement agencies to turn their searchlight in the direction of card fraudsters in order to stop card fraud.
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