NCC to partner CBN, police on cyber fraud

The Director of Consumer Affairs Bureau (CAB) at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mrs. Felicia Onwuegbuchulam, has said the commission will partner the Central Bank of Nigeria and security agents to jointly address the menace of cyber fraud.

She disclosed this, yesterday, in Lagos at the 4th quarterly open forum of the Industry Consumer Advisory Forum (ICAF) themed ‘Progressing from Customer Service to Customer Experience - The Consumer’s Point of View’.

Mrs. Felicia also stated that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would be signed with the CBN on how to tackle the menace, which she said has become rampant.

“Many people have lost huge sums of money to fraudsters. These fraudsters use ICT platforms to commit the crime which emanates from the telecommunications sector and ends at the financial service sector,” she stated.

Speaking further, she revealed that the outcome of a meeting which held in October this year with all service providers and customer care service centres brought about the need to have a meeting of stakeholders. This will involve the financial service sector, telecommunication service sector, regulators, operators, service providers as well as security agents on the issue of cyber fraud.

The stakeholders’ meeting, according to her, is scheduled to hold in the third week of January, 2019. “We hope that by new year, we will get somewhere to drastically minimize or eliminate the menace,” she stressed.

According to the head, Consumer Policy Development and Monitoring, Philip Eretan, cyber fraud is the biggest problem facing the ICT sector.

He noted that there are over 162 million active lines on the telecommunication platforms. “The fraudsters have formed syndicates, defrauding people. This fraud is also being perpetrated through the use of SIM swap,” he noted.

While advising customers to always inform their banks to immediately place ‘Post No Debit’ (PND) on their account anytime they misplaced their mobile phones, Eretan also warned against purchase of already registered SIM cards.