Miss Deborah Alao and Mrs. Folashade’s cases are quite different from the millions of Nigerians who have been victims or swindled by Mobile Money Operators (MMOs) agents who duped customers into purchasing POS terminals for business use.
Deborah, who owns a shop in the Ado area of Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, told The Quest Times that she requested POS for a Moniepoint agent, Mr. Henry, whose office is in the Lugbe area of Abuja, in early January 2023 and was given after paying N21,500.
“I was giving a condition that if I don’t meet up their targeted the POS machine will be retrieved from me and Mr. Henry called me on the February, 24th, 2023 and threatened to block the POS if I don’t release it because I was not meeting the target.
“He came and collected the POS machine at my shop noting that he will return it when I’m ready to meet the target.”
According to her, when she began calling Mr. Henry for the POS in order to comply with the directive, he stopped answering her calls and even blocked her from the customers’ WhatsApp group, leading her to believe that it was a swindled act.
Similarly, Mrs. Folashade had been bothering Mr. Henry to return her two POS machines that had been taken from her, and she had also been blocked from the WhatsApp platform.
When Quest Times contacted Mr. Henry about the development on Friday, he denied the fraudulent allegation.
He said “When issuing POS terminal to customers they are requested to pay N20,000 as guarantee’s charges and N1,500 for registration fee.
“We instruct them to abide strictly by the laid down rules that the terminal can either be withdrawn or blocked should they failed to meet up N20,000 daily withdraws from customers at their business/shops.
“Most of these customers know this policy but plays ignorant about it but when an agent comes to retrieve machine from them that is when they will be lying raising alarm that they purchase it with their money.”
According to him, when retrieving the POS terminal from customers, the agreement states that N10,000 from the guarantee charges will be refunded to the client, which is exactly what happened in the cases of the two customers.
He maintained the POS are not owed by customers but given for the Moniepoint company to get profit from them too.
The agent however promised to ratify the issue relating to the face-off with his customers within next week.