MTN employees working together with the fraudsters outside the company apparently exploited some holes in the verification system of the mobile money service to syphon money out of the company. The exact amount of the billions of shillings lost to the fraudsters has not been disclosed. At the current bank rate, a billion Ugandan Shillings is equivalent to about US $410,000.
MTN launched the mobile money transfer (MMT) service in Uganda in March 2009 in partnership with Fundamo, a startup that was eventually acquired by VISA last year. MTN launched in 1994 and operates in 21 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
[Source ugandapicks.com ]
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2 responses
i guess no Technews in Zimbabwe to write about?
If i was to be asked which mobile service i think is vunerable to fraud in Zimbabwe Ecocash would be tops. The fact that you can only view 5 transactions in itself is reason for concern. What ifd someone from the inside steals people’s monies and they are hidden beyond the 5 transactions? You will never know. Kingdom Cellcard is better, but still vulnerable, like one employee did here: http://www.chronicle.co.zw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27215:bank-employee-up-for-fraud&catid=46:crime-a-courts&Itemid=138
With Ecocash, you do not get a bgank statement or transaction history beyond just 5 transactions. in the cellcard case, the fraud was unravelled because the guy had a bank statement and a bank account. If that had happened with Ecocash the customer would have been told that he used the money and Econet would not budge.
If you were planning using ecocash for mobile payments, forewarned is forearmed. Dont use it until you have the option to get a transaction history similar to a bank statement, or until ecocash is linked to a bank account.