Cyrus Nzoka has earned himself a 3-month jail term or Ksh. 20000 fine for failing to reverse an M-Pesa amount of Ksh 16463 that was sent to him by mistake.
According to the charge sheet, Maithya received Ksh 16463 on November 3, 2020 knowing or having reasons to believe that it had been stolen.
Maithya, who whose charges included two counts of theft, stole the money from the M-Pesa number of Harriet Karimi according to registration details.
Although Maithya pleaded guilty to the offense when brought before Nairobi Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Nazushi, he said he could not return the money since he had already spent it.
In his defense, revealed that he was a parent of two children who depend on him and now wanted the court to forgive him.
Although telecos have tried their best to help in preventing users from sending money to wrong numbers, there are still heart-breaking incidents of people who send money to wrong numbers, it is promptly withdrawn and they are left stranded.
If you are, however, lucky to realize that you have sent money to the wrong number in time there are several steps you can follow;
- Call Safaricom
1.Call 234 or 200/100 for post pay or prepay whichever is applicable for reversal to be initiated. Reversal will be done when money sent to the wrong number is still available in the receiver account.
- Send a message
Open MPesa messages, Copy the transaction code e.g. (OE111ABCDE)
- Create a blank message and paste the code
- Enter 456 as the recipient and click send
- Wait for Safaricom to initiate the reversal.
Once you send the message Safaricom will respond in about five minutes that they have started working on the process. It doesn’t much time to reverse the money and in some instances, you may have to wait for about two hours. People who send the money at night may have to wait until the next day for a refund.
3. Hakikisha
“This service enables you to confirm the name of the intended recipient of the funds, before completing an M-PESA transaction,” said Safaricom
Here is how Hakikisha Works:
Go to M-PESA > Send Money > Enter Phone Number > Enter Amount > Enter M-PESA PIN > OK to Send > You will get a notification with the intended recipient’s Name > To stop any wrong transaction, send any letter or number within 25 seconds. Pressing cancel, dismiss, or close will NOT stop the transaction.
The pop-up feature will also apply when customers are making payments to Lipa Na M-PESA and agent withdrawals. M-PESA Agents will also benefit from the service when depositing funds to customer numbers.