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Posted by Onelove on July 13, 2009 at 05:12:15:

Interswitch Nigeria is a major card service company in Nigeria and is one of the few companies who provide banks with ATM cards with pins for use by bank and other customers. These cards use a secure platform for delivering payment services to people. When Interswitch first started their card services years ago, people saw this as a welcome feat achieved by only a few companies in that niche and it has helped keep a check on the flow of money in the country.
On a recent visit to Interswtich Nigeria's website at Interswitchng.com, I noticed a warning which says:

"BEWARE
Our attention has been drawn to various scam messages currently on the internet using info@interswitchng.com and stating that Interswithc is introducing a new securit plan requesting cardholders register their Interswitch ATM cards on 'fake' websites.

Please be aware that these mails are fraudulent.
Interswitch and its member banks will NEVE ask cardholders for their PIN, card number or expiry date.

These fraudulent activities have been reported to the appropriate authorities, Interswitch has also taken steps to shut down these fake websites and enlighten cardholders where possible.

Kindly inform your friends, colleagues, and neighbours to ignore such messages and pass on this message to as many people as possible .

If you have registered your card or think your card details may have been compromised in anyway, please CONTACT your bank immediately to either block your card and go to the nearest ATM and change your PIN.
Protect your PIN. NEVER reveal to anyone."

I have been eager to write about this for a long time, Interswitch and us. Although there are many other card companies in Nigeria like Etransact and Valucard, but it's Inteswitch that is the major provider of ATM cards. ATM Fraudsters are on the rise in many major cities in Nigeria like Lagos and Abuja with these criminals even going as far as cloning your cards when you insert them into ATM machines, then when the machine seizes you card, they try to help you and in that process steal your pin. I just had a report from my friend who went to Abuja and wanted to pay for his flight ticket with his ATM card and made the payment, retrieving his card too, but he noticed that some shady persons were hanging around the machines as well as trying to snoop round him. He didn't understand what was going on then only thinking that these guys were novices with the Atm machine. He only discovered later that his bank account with GTB has been emptied by the next morning.
Interswitch and the banks in Nigeria have told us to report to them when there's a suspected case of fraudulent activity on your account but the truth is that these fraudsters are very fast and due to bank bureaucracies, by the time the bank would have acted on your case to block withdrawals, the ATM criminals would have cleared your account. What they do is withdraw up to N100,000 for that day which is the limit for most banks and also very early in the morning before banks have been opened, they also withdraw money and by the time you realize it, it would have been N300,000 removed from your account. The bank would then open by 8.a.m. when your account is empty or almost. My friend was lucky though, he just had N60,000 in his account and now it's gone. He has other accounts though.

The banks in arrangement with the card company have been doing a lot of things to prevent this negative publicity by informing people about how to protect their privacy. Banks have also introduced blocking options for customers for e.g. Intercontinental banks recently introduced icblock which can be activated with an sms from our mobile phone. Customers can equally deactivate their interswitch cards and get another one if they suspect that it has been compromised. A lot of people are already having distrust for ATM cards and this is not good business for Interswitch Nigeria. They need to do more to win back the hearts of Nigerian customers


Comments:
  • Re: Interswitch Nigeria

    Posted by Kunle on July 22, 2009 at 12:16:11:
    In Reply to: Interswitch Nigeria posted by Onelove on July 13, 2009 at 05:12:15:

    What is interswitch doing about atm theft. I lost more than N5000 on my account before i had to move money out of the bank account


  • Re: Interswitch Nigeria

    Posted by on October 02, 2009 at 00:55:04:
    In Reply to: Interswitch Nigeria posted by Onelove on July 13, 2009 at 05:12:15:

    But how does they doing this without have my card with them,but they succeed by just got an atm pin.more enlighting fellow 9ja



  • Re: Interswitch Nigeria

    Posted by Koye Beckley on November 23, 2011 at 09:01:52:
    In Reply to: Interswitch Nigeria posted by Onelove on July 13, 2009 at 05:12:15:

    Interswitch is doing a good job in Nigeria. I am wondering if they can include a system like that of PayPal for webmasters.







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