Kenyans have every reason to question the security of their money when using equitel. This is due to the rising cases of equitel users being defrauded by conmen. The latest case is one in which a widow was defrauded 0.9M, a few hours after registering her simcard.
The saga began when the lady lost her Equity bank ATM card on Sunday 27th September. The following day, she called the bank to have it blocked. Later, she proceeded to Equity Bank, Kisii to replace it.
Apparently, the bank was having issues with ATM cards. Therefore, the attendants advised her to acquire an Equitel simcard instead. The attendants allegedly advised her to switch off the simcard for at least 24 hours, which she did.
A day later, she received a call from a guy who claimed to be from the same bank she had received her simcard. He alleged that he wanted to help her to activate her simcard. The lady fell for it and eventually lost Ksh900,000 from her bank account.
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Her son took to twitter to express their predicament, stating that she was a widow and that money was her only hope. She had received it a few years as compensation for her husband who died due to electric shock.
Social Engineering
Multiple Kenyans have had shared similar predicaments, and now are advocating for customers to avoid the bank. Most of them receive these fraud calls immediately after registering a new simcard. They have shared similar stories under #BoycottEquityBank
My mum once lost 2.3m, from equity in the year 2018, and equity never repaid,, ever since her life has never been the same. That was the begining of her sickness till now, since she was a tailor and those savings something equal to gold @clive_romeo
However, Equity bank has replied to this. They are blaming the act social engineering. Equity has restated that they only call their clients using 0763 000 000. However, they have promised to look into the matter and solve it.