Kenyan businesses, especially restaurants and nightclubs, are growing weary of a newly adopted scam by conmen hellbent on skipping on their bills.
Kenyans.co.ke has learnt that the scammers download an illegal app said to be found on Google Play Store, which they use to manipulate mobile money messages.
Some of the individuals who exploited the trick recorded themselves on Monday while paying for drinks at an outlet in Nairobi.
According to the viral clip, the conmen copy their latest mobile money message and paste it onto the illegal mobile application.
The app then enables them to edit the details of the message, including the code and the specific bill amount.
It is then prompted to resend the message to the mobile money account holder's phone to dupe the shop owners.
The conmen, who target establishments where waiters and attendants do not have access to mobile money phones that handle funds, then show the attendants the message to prove that the bill has been cleared.
Some of the scammers were shocked by the level of detail in which they could manipulate the message.
"Savvy young men are creating fake mobile money transaction codes to trick retailers. This clever con has led to the theft of goods worth millions," stated a concerned Kenyan online.
The scam comes months after Kenyans raised the alarm on individuals who emerged with a new trick of defrauding innocent Kenyans in a scheme targeting bank-to-mobile money transactions.
Fraudsters targetted bank accounts, withdrew money, and intentionally sent them to innocent Kenyan's mobile money.
Immediately after, the victims were called to reverse the money on mobile money and not to the bank account.
Victims of the scheme alleged that the scammers aimed to conceal their tracks in their fraud scheme and avoid arrest.
