Dear Editor – On February 4 I received a call on my landline from the “Visa Master Credit Card Department”.
The caller, Stella, who said she was from the company’s fraud division told me a Chinese syndicate had accessed my bank account and was about to withdraw R2 900 from one of my accounts.
She wanted to block this, but needed my authorisation for the bank not to release the funds.
The line was very poor so I stupidly gave her my cellphone number, which she duly phoned, having first established whether I banked on my phone or on my computer.
The alarm bells should, by this time, have been ringing, but she kept shouting at me to hurry up and kept up such a barrage of instructions that I could not think straight.
She asked for my email address which I said she should have if she was indeed from the fraud division of the bank.
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She changed her story and said she just needed to confirm it.
I gave it to her and she sent me an email with a link she wanted me to click on.
The intensity of her verbal onslaught continued and I got suspicious.
She told me she would put me on to her boss, a Johann Odendaal, as he would convince me to cooperate.
When he answered the phone, his accent was unusual. When I commented on this he made up some story.
At every opportunity, he reminded me I was wasting valuable time and I must click on the link.
This would have given them access to all my accounts.
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I called my husband and put my phone on speaker phone so he could hear the conversation, “Mr Odendaal” hung up immediately.
I went straight to the bank where a kind bank manager checked my accounts, calmed me down and reminded me that no bank employee would ever scream at a customer, especially if there was an emergency. He said these scammers target senior citizens in particular, so I am writing to the paper to warn others to take great care and to put the phone down and get to their bank if such a thing happens to them.
I was so nearly caught.
Sincerely, concerned citizen Rose Silverthorne.
