Gambia - Eyebrows raised over possible mobile network hack

Given its unabating trend, the common question it raises in some quarters is whether the country’s mobile network system has been hacked by some unscrupulous individuals at the detriment of the national economy since it affects all the four networks, according to our investigations. It raised the question too as to why such is allowed to persist for months without being addressed. In fact the situation is entrenched in the communication system that one sometimes even takes a genuine call for a fake one, thus missing a significant contact. This is the order of the day and even  at midnight or in the wee hours of the morning, one is bound to experience such a bizarre experience.

In its quest to ascertain the inconvenience it has been plunging the subscriber population into, the Daily Observer gauged the reaction of some stakeholders to this rather alarming and bizarre situation. 

“I receive fake international calls so many times. I have received at least five calls on my phone today,” Sainey Sonko, a Qcell subscribed told the Daily Observer.

Another customer, Dam Jobe, a businessman, also confirmed the calls he has been receiving for a while now.  “The numbers that usually appears are international and when I return the call I will not get any response,” he said. “We are getting calls on our cell phones and nobody talks when you receive it,” an Africell subscriber added.

Operators ‘aware’

Operators were contacted for their take on this scam. A customer care officer at Qcell who asked not to be named, confirmed that they are aware of the fake international calls, but was quick to add that they are working hard to establish the sources of the calls. 

However, the officer suggested for people to ignore such calls when they show on their cell phones or receive without any response.

A staff at the Comium Customer Care office that also preferred to remain anonymous also confirmed the calls as “fake” taking root on their network. Like her Qcell counterpart, she also said they are working hard to trace the source so that they can fix it as soon as possible. 

For the public relations officer of Gamcel, Abdoulie Bass, most of the people involved in this scam who could be any nationality are living within the country. He even noted that sometimes these scammers would send SMS to subscribers requesting for their bank account details. 

“It has happened to me several times,” he said, recalling a similar thing that recently occurred to one of their senior drivers. “If you check on the seven series of the last number that calls you, you will realise that they are Gambian numbers. So we are working to trace out these callers,” he assured. 

Admitting that to trace the callers will not be an easy task owing to the fact that they don’t have a tracking system, Bass advised that if the calls cannot be ignored completely, then it is wise to receive it and leave it on. “And these calls could only be detected when we have the tracking system but as at now that is our problem and none of these GSM operators has that,” the Gamcel PRO added. 

Economic loss

When asked whether the scam is not causing them any economic loss, Bass said it is not affecting them economically as it is not costing them any money. “They are just doing that to achieve their criminal objective. Like I said earlier, if this is done by foreigners, then they must be doing it with our own people because criminals don’t just come to your compound and operate like that,” he asserted.