Recalling the Nightmare called R99 Scams on Hive PUD

How often do you check the insignificant tiny amounts going off your bank account?

Many of us set up sms notifications with our banks to only notify us of amounts over ZAR100, so anything less than that could be deducted without you knowing it, and that’s something the cyber rogues are very well aware of here in South Africa.

I was scammed a couple of years ago with illegal debit orders but these scammers were desperate and my first debit was greater than R99!

I eventually traced the scammers through PASA, the organization that oversees our payment system.

The scammers alleged that I agreed to a tele-sale for some loyalty card, which did not exist by the way as this Loyalty Card was a fabrication, and the monthly fee was R349!
They took on the wrong gal as that amount would not go unnoticed for long!

PASA in turn requested a recording of this so-called tele-sale and the scammers provided a fabricated recording of this conversation.
The voice was that of a much younger person whose voice and accent was nothing like mine; obviously someone who was paid to say she is me!

The information they had was my ID Number, Full Name, Address, Bank Account Number and Cell and Telephone numbers. Phishing of a different kind - (Photo by Pascal Müller on Unsplash)

A tele-sale still is regarded as a legal mandate to deduct money from our bank accounts without us signing any mandate despite this kind of fraud being rife for years already!

I was asked to lay a fraud charge which our local police were not interested in, but I persisted and at least was given a case number which PASA needed as they were investigating this fraud syndicate operating from my home town of Durban!

It turned out that dishonest employees of companies we have legal debit orders with, simply download payment lists with our personal data and sell that information to fraudsters.

Following a further three illegal debits from different ‘companies’ over a period, I eventually changed my bank account.

**Unbelievable that our money is not safe in the banks here in our country, but sadly true!

I did my best to warn others and contacted Wendy Knowler, a Consumer Journalist who has a weekly slot on our local radio station and asked me to speak about this on her show Consumer Watch.
Thereafter I was contacted by our television network SABC and made an appearance on national television, which was quite weird, but people started checking their accounts after that show where they also spoke to a young guy who had lost around R17 000 over a long period! That was scary I would say!
Thankfully I saw mine early as they got greedy and took more than the unseen R99!

I was shocked last year to read that this is still ongoing and that the rogues who run these R99 debit order scams were given a reprieve by Covid19 with the extension of the deadline for banks to implement Debi-Check, a system that will put an end to this kind of fraud that’s been happening for many years already with our flawed national payment system!
The new date now is 31 October 2021, and the figures below show just how big this fraud is in South Africa.
In 2016 alone there were approx 600 000 disputed debits amounting to around R59 400 000; this is big business! The figures started dropping after this scam was covered on other consumer shows as well, but in 2018 there were around 400 000 disputed debits, still way too many!

Does this kind of fraud happen in your part of the world or does your banking system have better security?

Hive has been filled with posts about the current scam here on Hive and other Blockchains and a fellow South African @fionasfavourites spoke of it today in her POST; please read that as well as the POST by @hivewatchers if you do not want to lose your hard-earned Hive!

The most important thing to remember is this, and I quote from @fionasfavourites:

Do not click on any links provided to you through Discord, in comments, or in any sort of message.

The scammers are getting more sophisticated, unlike back in 2014 when I was scammed through the sale of lists with personal information!

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