The Uyo Zonal Commander of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Assistant Commander of the EFCC, ACE Bawa Hamidu Saidu has charged Point of Sale, POS, operators in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State to put modalities in place to ensure that a proper 'Know Your Customer' , KYC, is carried out on customers who approach them for transactions.

Bawa gave this charge on Wednesday, October 19, 2022 when Executives of the Association of Point Of Sale, POS, Operators led by their President, Ndifreke Bassey, paid him a visit in his office in Uyo.

The Zonal Commander, who described the visit as 'very important and timely' decried the consequences of fraudulent transactions by customers on operators of the POS businesses, and urged the visitors to ensure that their members adhere to the KYC directive.

Bawa also enlightened the visitors on the new modus operandi used by fraudulent individuals to defraud POS operators. According to him, some criminal elements in the society are now defrauding POS operators, by giving them fake Naira notes as payment for monies transferred to designated bank accounts provided by the dubious customer.

“Recently, a number of POS operators reported cases of customers who approach them with fake Naira notes, and then gave them account numbers to transfer monies to, only for them to effect the transfer and later realized that the money given to them were fake bills. You must assist the Commission in arresting such individuals by properly examining the notes and alerting the Commission”, he said.

Earlier, Bassey said the essence of the visit was to seek assistance from the Commission in curbing fraud in the POS business as merchants do not follow due process before issuing POS machines to individuals. “The problem we are facing today, with the merchants on ground and the POS business we are doing, is that due process is no longer followed on how to issue out the POS machine. The merchants go from door to door to offer these machines to individuals and because of this, we have a lot of fraudulent activities going on, and we need you to help us”, he said.

Media & Publicity

20 October, 2022