MTC warns customer of raising scams; amid festive season.

Windhoek, Dec 3 – There is a raise in a variety of scams relating to MTC competitions and products and the telco is warning its more than 2 million customers to remain vigilant and alert to avoid falling prey.

The brands Corporate Communications Practitioner Fikameni Mathias highlighted that MTC is aware of ongoing cases of scams where fraudsters in pretense to be MTC employees defraud customers via online but most frequently via privatized calls that narrate false information in attempt to solicit money from clients. 

“It is unfortunate that most of these attempts have been successful, and with the festive season upon us, MTC anticipates a raise in this dishonest trend and would like to warn customers to be vigilant of these scams,” he said. 

Most common of these scams are calls from privatized numbers, web-based mobile site and social media with dubious but enticing tittles where the caller or supposed web owner pretends to be MTC.

“The bad guys are preying on your desperate situation to have a good festive season and lack of information thereof.”

Mathias shared the different variation of scams. 

Reward Calls: Most common; The client has a good record of recharging and calling and hence MTC would like to reward them with a certain amount. This conversation would later lead to the fraudster proceeding to ask you for your One Time Pin (OTP), among other personal details, which allows them to make an online purchase, while pretending to be you. 

“Take note that this is a scam and MTC has no such reward activities currently running.

Be aware of web based mobile site and social media with dubious but enticing tittles. It encourages people to complete an on-line poll to stand a chance to win a Samsung, iPhone or iPad Pro. It further states that, randomly selected winners will be required to cover delivery costs to have their gift couriered to them. Mathias highlighted that this too is a scam. 

Another variation and extension of a scam highlighted in above is the most frequent where a customer gets a call and the supposed MTC agent claims the customer has taken part in a competition that they firstly are, unaware of, and secondly the customer knows very well that they have not participated in any competition. The caller proceeds with the OTP procedure and askes the customer’s banking details in what is supposed to be the procedure for the customer to claim their monies. Again, this is a scam. 

Lastly from the many raising scams is one targeted to families, especially the elderly where a caller would call a family claiming a relative of the family has been involved in an accident and hence money should be sent for ambulance services. This is also a scam and while it may not be directly related to MTC, it is a crafted process aimed to defraud customer. 

“We would like to emphasize that in any case of a competition, MTC will never ask you to share your banking details telephonically. If you are asked to pay a certain fee in order to claim your reward, it is definitely a scam. In addition, our agents will never ask you for a One Time Pin (OTP), this is definitely. Also, our agents will never rush you into doing payments or procedures under the pretext of possibly forfeiting your prize monies should you not comply. The rush is intended to deceive unsuspecting victims into disclosing bank account and credit card numbers, which are later used to fraudulently pay for online transactions,” said Mathias.

Mathias advised customer to always contact the customer call center at 13000 or 12000 to verify when in doubt.

Robert Maseka mrobert@namibiadailynews.info