Fake Alert and Shop Fraud: A Nigerian Trader's Handbook

Yes, and it is not difficult. A message can be sent so that it displays under your bank's name, and there are apps that generate a receipt screen that looks correct in every detail. This is why an alert cannot be treated as payment. The only thing that proves money has arrived is your own balance, checked on your own device.

Sometimes it genuinely is. That does not change what you do. Tell the customer the goods are theirs and you will keep them aside until the money lands, then hand over when it does. A real customer with a real delay loses nothing by waiting. Someone who cannot accept that arrangement is telling you something.

No. Treat it as no evidence at all. An image can be edited in under a minute, and there are apps built specifically to produce fake transfer receipts. The same applies to a live-looking screen on the customer's phone, which can be an imitation app rather than a real banking app.

Sometimes, if you move immediately. If the receiving account still holds the money when your bank acts, it can be frozen while the dispute is investigated. In practice the money is usually moved on within minutes, so recovery is the exception rather than the rule. Report it anyway, because the account gets flagged and that protects the next trader.

Give them one rule instead of a list: goods leave the shop when money is in the account, and only the shop owner's phone counts as proof. Make it a rule about the process, not about judging the customer, so staff never have to decide whether someone looks trustworthy. Then make clear that no member of staff will ever be blamed for making a customer wait.

No app can check your bank balance for you, and any app that claims to prevent fake alerts is overselling. What MyTreda does is remove the second half of the problem: every sale is recorded with the amount, the payment method and who served the customer, and closing your till at the end of the day compares your cash against your recorded sales. You find a shortfall the evening it happens instead of discovering it months later with no way to trace it.