In view of the newly rolled out Electronic Transfer Levy, popularly called e-levy, some unscrupulous people have devised a new strategy to dupe users of the mobile money service especially those on MTN.
For this reason, the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has informed the general public the fraudsters pose as staff of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to steal monies from the mobile money accounts of users.
Recall that the e-levy which is supposed to attract1.5% value tax has been dogged with challenges including the non-application of some exemptions from the tax.
As a result, some persons are taking advantage of the situation to call Mobile Money (MoMo) users under the guise of assisting them to reverse a wrongful deduction and end up withdrawing monies of those who fall prey.
“There is no reversal that starts with the entity calling you. The entities are the ones supposed to do the refunds. anytime someone calls you trying to engage you on reversal of E-levy and that he or she is from Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), just cut the call and report to your entity because GRA does not involve itself with reversals”, says the Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber, Dr. Ken Ashigbey
The government, together with the entities facilitating the implementation, have put in place mechanisms to correct exempted transactions that have so far been affected in the modified phased implementation of the levy.
Dr. Ashigbey says steps are being taken to check the operations of the fraudsters.
“If you send money and you are wrongfully deducted, you would have to place the call to begin the reversal process. So it is important that we are all cautious so that no one plays on our intelligence and defraud us of our hard-earned money.”
