The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC has warned members of the public to be cautions of fraudulent activities of those it described as loan sharks.
This is as the Commission said it had received over 20,000 complaints of those who had fallen victims of the sharp practices of online fraudsters.
The Head of Consumer Affairs Bureau of the Commission, Mr. Ayanbanji Ojo, made the disclosure, on Thursday, during a telecom consumers sensitisation programme themed: “Shine Your Eyes- No Fall Mugu,” held at the spare parts Market, Agodi-Gate, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
He said the re was need to educate the people on the financial fraud going on in the telecom space.
Ojo said the activities of the loan sharks had caused a lot of people pain with many traders vulnerable to what is going on.
He enjoined telecom consumers to approach their service providers to resolve their complaints, saying that if the providers are unable to resolve it, they should approach the Commission by dialling 622, which is toll-free.
Ojo says, “The market people are our telecom consumers, without them we can not exist as a regulator. The market people deserve to know what is going on. Today’s programme is different from what we did at Bodija and the University of Ibadan.
“Today we are talking about ‘Shine-your-eyes’ which means there are so many financial fraud going on through the telecom and we want to educate our people, particularly the traders, because most of them are vulnerable to what is going on in the telecom space,” he explained.
Ojo disclosed that there was the need to educate consumers all the time because there had been many complaints on loss of money and being in the period of sustainability of telecommunications industry, everything must be done to sustain telecom consumers.
“The complaints we have been seeing so far is over 20 thousand. Even this money the loan shark saying a person on your contact list collected loan, how did they get your number? This is the kind of things we are trying to protect and to protect people, we have to educate them, so when people have information they are protected,” he explained.
Ojo, however, advised the traders to use strong passwords in emails and private networking platforms, and avoid clicking on any link to avoid theft.
The President of the Ibadan Motor Parts Dealers Association, Olanrewaju Ishola, thanked the Commission for bringing such educative programme to the market.
He said the market men and women were glad to receive the Commission, as the programme was helpful and educative.
“This programme is very important. As you can see, our people came out in their numbers to attend. They have listened and have learnt a lot. We love the programme. It’s very helpful. We want to thank the NCC for bringing it to our doorstep. We look forward to having more programmes of this kind,” he added.
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