The victim of a RICA cell phone scam is being victimized by the fraudsters. The victim told Nelspruit Post that she has been receiving phone calls daily asking for her to deposit the rest of the money in order to claim her winnings. “These people phone me constantly, some days I receive up to four phone calls a morning. The caller identifies herself as a mrs Hope and requests me to pay over an amount of R7 500 into the bank account of a mr Johnson so that they can finalise the payment. After a week of my ignoring their request they have now dropped the amount to R3 800 saying that unless I pay the amount they cannot transfer the R250 000 to me.”
The scam artists operate from an office block in Voortrekker street, Belville and even lists 021-813-9675 as an office number for their “winners” to contact. Nelspruit Post contacted the number and spoke to a Nigerian man who claimed that we had reached the Nokia Accounts office. He introduced himself as Paul Benson and requested a winning number and a ref number. Nelspruit Post supplied him with the same number found on the winning certificate of our victim, and was congratulated on winning R95 000 in the government’s RICA promotion. This despite the fact that the winning certificate stated R 250 000. The man soon realised he had been caught out and slammed the phone down.
Nelspruit Post contacted the number 083-307-3094 which is the number supplied for mrs Hope who is said to run the payments department. Not surprisingly, the number went over to voicemail. We then contacted mr Johnson on 076-419-7343. Johnson explained that originally it had been R250 000 winnings but because we failed to transfer the rest of the money on time, they have decided to accommodate us and lower the amount to R3 800 which would then also affect the winning amount which now reflected as R95 000.
Nelspruit Post has sent a formal media enquiry to MTN asking for details on how it is possible for this group of fraudsters to use their network for sms spamming and what MTN can do to stop or prevent this from happening. We also asked that if indeed something can be done, why has it not been implemented. At the time of going to print no feedback from MTN had been received.
