Rural elderly easy prey for scammers, Orange confirms
Elderly people in rural areas are the most vulnerable to Orange Money scammers, the mobile company has confirmed to BusinessWeek. Orange Money is the country’s oldest and largest mobile money service, having launched in June 2011. According to figures provided by both Orange Botswana and the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority, Orange Money subscriptions grew from 791,511 in March 2021 to the current 889,457.
However, the service has also been the focus of scammers, with customers receiving random calls and messages attempting to trick them into parting with their funds.
The scams and victims have become a regular feature on social media consumer groups such as the Consumer Watchdog, where subscribers have reported losing money through increasingly sophisticated con jobs.
Many of the scammers call subscribers pretending to be from Orange Botswana and attempt to secure subscribers’ security details, often by tempting them with the false promise that they have won prizes.
This week, Orange Botswana officials confirmed that the majority of victims are elderly
people in rural areas, who may not have sufficient levels of financial literacy to spot scams.
The mobile company said it has received reports of scams, but declined to reveal to BusinessWeek the scale of the problem. Orange Botswana officials also declined to state what the maximum amount of money lost in a scam was. “Incidents of scamming are crimes that are reported to the police as it is fraud or theft,” the officials said.
“We actively support them in their efforts to
capture culprits. “This collaboration has resulted in some successes as communicated by the Botswana Police Service.”
The officials said scamming has affected the mobile money industry in different periods and at varying degrees. The company urged all financial service providers to increase awareness of fraudsters and scammers through different platforms.
“As Orange Money, we benchmark with our counterparts within our network for best practice to address the issue.
“The scamming of some of our customers is something that Orange Money does not take lightly and we have made it a point to ensure that we protect our customers as best as possible.
“To this end, we have not been quiet on the topic but instead we have actively engaged customers through education campaigns, advising them to be careful and to be vigilant against possible scammers,” the officials said.
While Orange Botswana declined to state the total value and volume of Orange Money transactions, other available data sources indicate that the value of transactions across the different service providers in the country shot up from P175 million in 2011 to more than P1 billion in 2014. Besides Orange Money, the other mobile money service providers include Mascom, BTC Mobile and BotswanaPost.
Last year, the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority and the Botswana Investment Professionals Society launched an educational campaign to help clamp down on financial scams in the country. Both organisations said weak financial literacy was underpinning the rising incidents of financial scams.
Besides the mobile money scammers, other cons include those involving forex and cryptocurrency trades.