The victim of a Rica cellphone scam is still being victimised by the fraudsters. She told Nelspruit Post that she had been receiving phone calls daily asking 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 calls in a morning.
“The caller identifies herself as Ms Hope and requests me to pay over R7 500 into the bank account of a Mr Johnson so they can finalise the payment.
“After a week of my ignoring their request they have now dropped it 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 in Belville and even list 021-813-9675 as an office number for their “winners” to contact.
A Nelspruit Post journalist contacted the number and spoke to a man who claimed to work for the Nokia accounts office. The man introduced himself as Paul Benson and requested a winning and a reference number.
The newspaper supplied him with the same number found on the winning certificate of the victim, and was congratulated on winning R95 000 in the government’s Rica promotion.
This despite the fact that the certificate stated R250 000. The man soon realised he had been caught and slammed the phone down. Nelspruit Post then contacted 083-307-3094, which is the number supplied for Ms Hope who is said to run the payments department.
Not surprisingly, the caller went to voicemail. He then contacted Mr Johnson on 076-419-7343. He explained that originally it had been R250 000, but because the money had not been transferred on time, they decided to be accommodating and lower the amount to R3 800, which would then also affect the winning amount.
The paper has sent a formal media enquiry to MTN asking for details on how it is possible for this group of fraudsters to use its network for SMS spamming and what it can do to stop or prevent this from happening.
The journalist also asked that, if indeed something could be done, why has it not been implemented.
At the time of going to print, no feedback from MTN had been received.
