BVN SCAMS: What You Need To Know

After the compulsory required bank account authorization through the BVN by the Central Bank Of Nigeria, Its unfortunate that recently, online scams are not only in vougue but some unscrupulous Nigerians have deviced devilish means in defrauding individuals by sending them text messages to provide their BVN and Account Details.

Yesterday morning (29-12-2015) we gathered some information from a Techfecter who sent forwarded a message she got from these Scammers and a detailed text of their voice conversation, have a look…

After the received this message, she was soo devastated and had to dail the number in which later a male voice picked and requested for details including:

Account Name
Amount Last Withdrawn
Account Type

Luckily for her she had to cut-off the call because she was suspicious and fully sure that here BVN was validated then… Soo she sent us an email concerning that…
Having Found this dubious we asked her not to call that number again and instead we visited a branch of her bank to look into the issue..

From information gathered at the customer care unit at the bank, it was revealed that it was truly a scamand has been circulating recently!
And we met a woman in the bank who had faced a similar situation…
Unluckily for the other woman we met at the bank who foolishly supplied all her details asked by those scammers… She had come to deactivate her ATM details due to suspicious and alarming transactions she received.

Here’s is an interview from the woman we had met right inside the Bank;
TechFect: Good day madam, we are reporters from Africa’s Informative and Technology Blog, TechFect. Pls, if you may permit us, we would like to know a bit from what is going on with you concerning your BVN…

Woman: I received a text yesterday morning telling me that my ATM is deactivated, I became very worried so I had to call the number in the text, which they requested for my account name, number, last withdrawal, details on my ATM card like the pin, date, cvv and the card number.
They said there were from the CBN and that everything is alright and they’d send a text when it has been fully reactivated.

Then all of a sudden that evening I received a message that my account has been debited for buying something online, I didn’t take it Soo serious because the morney wasn’t Soo much not until I received too other Hugh deductions!….

She said she had never experienced such kind of dubious act and that the government should look into this and arrest those culprits involved! During the cause of her urgency, her ATM was blocked and she was told to apply for another…

Report reaching us also said this isn’t really the beginning, various customers have been noticing frequent scam alerts like this and have been logging complaints, but the questions on the table is that are those financial institutions taking appropriate countermeasures and passing out messages for their customers to be on a be safer side???…

Since the answer for that question is uncertain and left for the gods, we took it upon ourselves to write this piece of information regarding the countermeasures and ways to ensure you don’t fall into the hands of those thieves!

1. CBN has only one telephone line to logged complaints which is: 014485388 or 014485531 or contact you bank
2. No bank would call or send a text or link for you to provide details regarding your account details, transaction, activations, or deactivations, all of this is only done in the bank!
3. Do not call, text or click any link via SMS or e-mail regarding BVN or your Bank, if you get any of these, do visit your bank for enquiries.
4. Never Ever Supply your Bank related details to untrusted websites, blogs or whatever medium.
5. Keep your ATM Card Details safe and personal!
6. Avoid holding your ATM card visibly in ques.
7. Keep all related bank details safe and for only trusted clients.
8. Report suspicious bank related messages, calls, or emails to the customer care unit or department at your Bank.
It’s unfortunate that the Fraud has become a component of the Fabric of the Nigerian society.
Daily unscrupulous Nigerians device devilish of defrauding their fellow Citizens of their hard earned cash! We all need to be security conscious regarding how we provide details when it comes to calls, SMS and emails, because those scammers would do anything to achieve their lazy and wicked aims!

Pls take note of:

1. BVN registration cannot be done online the owner of the account must present his/herself physically for his thumb print and other data to be captured.
2. No Bank sends email with any Link to Validate any account or Cash Any Money once you see an email with aa Link to a Data base it’s a FRAUD click at your own risk
3. NO bank will ever ask for your PIN NO matter the circumstances