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By Funke Busari
Thirty-year-old Segun Johnson studied Mass Communication at Osun Polytechnic, Ire, Osun State. All efforts by the Ogun State indigene to get a job with his National Diploma certificate proved abortive. For some time, he joined his father, who is a welder, in his trade.
Searching for self-fulfilment, he decided to go into Point-of-Sales (POS) business. He said he chose POS business over going into cab-hailing business because he said he was convinced that the risk in the business was high.
“I thought to myself that if I could make N85,000 in a month, that’s not bad for a start. That alone convinced me to give it a try. That is how I started in March 2022. That is about a year now.”
But midway into the business, he began to experience the bad sides.
First, it was network issues. He also put a lot into consideration to avoid being scammed by criminals. One of the measures he considered was the need to shun the urge to employ female sales persons. According to him, female attendant attracts more customers, but it’s risky.
Then as the naira scarcity continued to bite harder, getting cash became a serious task that must be surmounted if he still wanted to remain in business. Until the naira crunch became a big issue, he said he could walk into his bank to get cash.
“I might go two or three times in a day, depending on how the market moves. That was how we were getting cash. We don’t have any special connection with the cashier or bank manager, because they see us as normal customers, just like other people.”
But all that was before the scarcity of naira notes when getting cash now became as difficult as a horse passing through the eye of a needle.
“At times, I will move from Egbeda back to Agege. A market woman might just call me to come to collect cash of N70,000 or N90,000. She would take an extra N4,000 or N5,000. That is what I have been doing for some time. At times, I don’t have any money.
POS operators also go to get funds from petrol attendants, who also charge specific amounts for the cash they give out.
“Before, we used to pay N2,000 or N1,000 for N50,000, but when they noticed that people really need cash, they go higher with their demand. We’ve been doing this all the time, just to get cash. That is why you see these POS operators inflating the price. They don’t just have any other thing than to inflate the price because they themselves are buying it.”
Segun told Saturday Sun that POS operators also fall for the antics of scammers. He spoke about the experience of a lady in Egbeda, Lagos who lost N 65,000 to a customer. According to him, the customer was unnecessarily friendly with the POS operator who got carried away by her antics.
“She inserted the card and input the figure requested, but the customer inserted the wrong PIN deliberately, midway into their conversation, the transaction was declined, but before then the operator was counting the money and the customer carefully tore the decline slip. The unsuspecting operator didn’t notice. By the time she did, it was too late. Her ‘friendly’ customer has disappeared with the money.”
He also informed about a personal experience with a suspected scammer.
“The man came with a Toyota Camry car while I was attending to customers. When they notice you are with two or three customers, you can’t concentrate, that is when they always come. So the man drove and parked in front of my office. He came to me that he wanted to make a transfer to me. I gave him my account number. Then he told me that the network was bad. I don’t know if it is true or not. He said he called his wife and his wife was not picking. He was talking and behaving like a Customs officer. He told me his father was in the hospital, that he really needed to give him N50,000 cash. I told him I couldn’t be of help, but he was persistent and emotional.
“I was thinking of giving the man N20,000. If N20,000 would do, he should leave the car and go, but the man said he could not. So I was unable to help him.”
But he was still scammed on November 29, 2022.
“A customer came to me to do a transaction. He lives close to me. He said his friend wanted to send N1.5 million into my bank account, that I would be withdrawing for him in cash. I decided to give him my account. Within 15 minutes, I received an alert of N1.5million. I had only N200,000 then, so when the money entered my account, it was N1.7million. I also confirmed that the money was in the account.
But a week after the transaction, he noticed that his account had been barred. He got to the bank the following day and learnt that the transaction was a fraudulent one. He said he went to the police but the search for the criminals yielded no fruits.
“I lost close to N500,000 between November and January, because I paid a lot of fees which were not supposed to be paid, because I didn’t know anything.”
He said a particular POS operator he knew was not only defrauded but was killed.
“He had a customer that he always took cash to in millions. He took the cash to Oju-Ore in Abeokuta, Ogun State to deliver to this person. The operator actually lost his life,” he said.
However, some scammers have not been that successful, as the long arm of the law caught up with them.
In Ekiti State, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) arrested a 36-year-old man, Ayodeji Ademiluyi, for allegedly parading himself as a medical doctor and defrauding POS operators in the state capital.
According to the state commandant of the agency, John Fayemi, the suspect defrauded the operators by sending fake alerts after collecting cash from them. The commandant cautioned POS operators in the state to be careful of their customers as the state command had been inundated with complaints bordering on POS fraud.
In Oyo State, the police command said it arrested two suspected fraudsters who have been defrauding innocent residents of the state by buying goods and collecting money from POS operators with fake bank alerts.
The duo of Olayide Olumide and Oluwemimo Adeyanju have been purchasing clothing materials and electronics from shop owners, market women and even withdraw money from POS in places like Apete, Awotan and other communities in Ibadan, the state capital.
According to the State Police Command, the suspects were arrested after series of complaints from some of the victims. The suspects were arrested by the police operatives attached to Apete Police Divisional Headquarters following a complaint.
Similarly, the police at the Bariga Division of the Lagos State Police Command arrested a 45-year-old woman, Sherifat Rasag for allegedly duping a POS operator, Mayowa Akindamola of N360,000. Rasag, who claimed to be a street sweeper in the Bariga area of Lagos, has been charged before a Lagos Magistrate’s Court.
Also arrested and arraigned alongside her for allegedly receiving the N360,000 was one Ifeanyi Udochukwu, 35.
The police alleged that the incident occurred on July 21 2022 at 3 Adeyinka Osifo Street, Akoka, Bariga, Yaba, Lagos when Rasag visited the complainant’s POS shop. She was reported to have met her salesgirl and presented an account number to her, instructing her to send the sum of N360,000 from her employer’s account to the account number she presented with the promise to pay her back the money from her account on the spot.
The police alleged that the innocent salesgirl believed her and sent her employer’s N360,000 into the account that Rasag presented to her.
Police further alleged that when the salesgirl told her to pay back her employer’s money, Rasag allegedly took to her heels.
The salesgirl, according to the police, raised the alarm which attracted people who assisted her to pursue and apprehend Rasag. Police counsel, Magaji Haruna told the court that the first defendant deliberately went to the POS operator’s shop to defraud her with the connivance of the second defendant who allegedly received the money.
Also in Anambra State, the police arrested a man, Chisom Nweke who allegedly uses charms to defraud POS operators in Awka. It was gathered that the man, armed with his charms, would cut plain white papers to the size of naira notes and give them to POS operators to deposit in an account.
The operators would only realise that the supposed money were mere papers after the transfers had been made. He confessed to be using charms to defraud POS operators within Awka and its environs.
