Point of Sale (PoS) operators in Lagos State caught a fraudster who had been using a unique editing trick to steal tens of thousands of naira from them.
Mistura Ibrahim, a PoS operator at Jibowu in Yaba, Lagos, was having a typical afternoon at her shop when a man approached her and requested a cash withdrawal on October 13. But what seemed like an everyday transaction turned into a costly mistake, one she would only realise hours later.
Ibrahim told FIJ that the man, who she later identified as Miracle Okohua, handed over his card and requested to withdraw N15,000. Without thinking twice, she input the amount he had requested and passed him the machine to enter his four-digit password while continuing her routine.
Once he handed the machine back, she approved the transaction and handed him the N15,000 he had requested. But Ibrahim did not realise she had given Okohua more than the amount he had withdrawn from his account in error because there was no reason to doubt herself.
“Some minutes after he had left, I checked my balance. I was surprised to see that he withdrew N1,500 instead of N15,000. But it was late by this time. I know I input N15,000, but while the PoS was with him, he went back and edited the digit I had input to N1,500. There was nothing I could have done,” Ibrahim told FIJ.
“I figured that Okohua edited the figure I had inputted on the POS because the first time he tried, he put the wrong pin, and Palmpay declined the transaction. But it was successful the second time. I didn’t crosscheck the figures because I thought it was still N15,000.”
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The approved transaction
She had already counted her loss for the day until Tuesday night when she saw an angry mob shouting at a man. When she went further to hear what was happening, she discovered that the man was Okohua and that he had also tried the same trick on another PoS operator on her street but failed.
The declined transaction
“I immediately explained to the crowd that he had tried the same thing with me earlier that day and went away with my N13,500. This was the confirmation the men needed to hear to take Okohua to the police station,” she said.
“I followed the men to the police station that night. The police officers heard my side of the story and gave me money back. Once they did, I left the station and started going back to the shop.”
Speaking with the second PoS operator who identified herself to FIJ as Funmilayo, she said that Okohua was in her shop at 7 pm on Tuesday to withdraw N30,000, which were the details she had input on her Palmpay PoS machine before handing it over to him to add his details.
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After he had input his details, she proceeded with the transaction but found that what Palmpay had approved was N3,000 and not N30,000. It was at this point that she began to suspect that Okohua had set out to defraud her. She then informed her boss, who handed him his N3,000, and began to raise the alarm.
According to Funmilayo, once her boss started asking him questions, he began to talk to her rudely and threatened to harm her. Not too long after, two soldiers showed up for Okohua, she said.
“The soldiers wanted to stop us from shouting at him, but when we didn’t stop, passersby started asking us what was going on. When the passersby stood as a crowd, one of the soldiers left. But Okohua would not stop talking rudely. This made many people gather around to find out what was happening,” Funmilayo said.
With the help of the passersby and Ibrahim’s testimony, they confirmed Okohua’s crime.
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