From Yahoo-Yahoo to ATM fraud

With the internet bringing the world closer together, many vices, amongst which is identity theft, have become more prominent. Technological advancements allow man to send and receive instant messages within seconds.

Information about anything of interest is made readily available irrespective of the corner of the universe from where you are operating through the services of search engines and payments are made and received with more convenience, amongst numerous other things.

As helpful as the internet has been to man; it has also provided a safe haven for faceless perpetrators of cyber crimes. The internet is home to fraudulent e-mails, network hacking, distribution of viruses and online identity theft amongst other ills.

Identity theft features generating, reactivating or even taking over financial folders unlawfully through impersonation. It became very popular in Nigeria in the early 2000s as the Internet itself gained popularity in the country.

It became rampant amongst adventurous youth who dubbed the activity “Yahoo Yahoo”, named after the most popular web search engines. Their Internet scams are mostly run on victims mostly from America and Canada and are referred to as 419 emails.

With the steady increase in the amount lost to scams and identity theft in these North American countries, the citizens are warned off and the business has become less fruitful making adventurous youths to move on to other scam ventures like hacking into details of debit cards better known as the ATM.

Although Nigerian financial institutions are yet to adopt the credit cards, the debit card ATM, is gaining wider acceptance for its immediacy and functionality. But as the “Yahoo Yahoo” scam declines, frauds relating to ATM cards have been on the increase.

ATM fraud is rising alarmingly

Finding a victim is like “beating your way out of a wet paper bag”. An average Nigerian receives SMS requesting their ATM details in order to help process a prize they have won in a competition they can’t remember entering for, or an email saying their ATM card needs reactivation and details should be sent to an unauthorised recipient.

Fraud victims now have faces -They are either relatives or friends and it is becoming a more worrying issue than its predecessor the ‘Yahoo Yahoo’.