The Consumer Council of Fiji in the past five years has received more than 1,200 complaints regarding scams which occurred through mobile money wallet.
While speaking on fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan, Consumer Council of Fiji Manager Campaigns, Information and Media, Vinash Singh says the monetary value of these complaints is approximately $1.7 million.
Singh says there are other bodies such as the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Reserve Bank of Fiji and the Fiji Police Force who also register consumers complaints.
He says there can be a higher amount of hard-earned money lost by Fijians as a very small percentage of victims usually come forward to complain.
Singh says a lot of scammers who are based abroad have different ways to contact consumers in Fiji and are asking people to transfer money and receive a certain amount of prize.
When questioned on receiving calls by scammers on Viber and WhatsApp and the steps taken, Vodafone Fiji's Head of eCommerce and Digital Financial Services, Shailendra Prasad says the scam calls can originate from many mediums and WhatsApp and Viber are not controlled by Vodafone Fiji as these are global platforms.
He says however they can verify if calls are received from a particular mobile number.
He says it is a constant challenge to be able to monitor these scammers as well.
Prasad further says the amount of complaints regarding scams is very concerning as people are affected by it and that is why Vodafone continuously tries to upgrade the security elements of the system and to make people more aware and to make them digitally and financially literate.
He further says they have recently started upgrading their M-PAiSA App with enhanced security and for a newer version of the app will be completed by November.
He says this way they will limit the customer's access to the M-PAiSA account through the authenticated device.
