Ballito man fleeced

A Ballito resident had R30 000 withdrawn from his credit account after drawing money from an ATM in Ballito on Monday.
The resident, who asked to remain anonymous, received an SMS notification of money being withdrawn from his account on Tuesday morning, while he was at home.
“My phone went off saying an amount of around R4000 had been withdrawn from my account,” he said.
Several more notifications went off before he was able to stop the card. By that time R30 000 had been withdrawn from his account. The notification said the withdrawals were being made in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
“What amazed me was the speed that they had withdrawn the money,” said the Ballito local.
He said the bank informed him that a refund would be made in one to two weeks as the transfer is still pending authorisation.
The amount withdrawn was also more than the monthly withdrawal limit on the card.
Other ATMs also fell prey to card skimmers on Monday.
Ballito Junction manager Theresa Mariayia had not received any official notifications from the banks but confirmed two men had been removed from the premises on Monday and taken to Umhlali SAPS.
According to the police the security guard on duty noticed the two men placing something on the ATM. Shortly afterwards, one of the men joined the bank queue and tried steal a bank card from a customer withdrawing cash from the machine.
Umhlali SAPS confirmed that the suspects were in custody.
Credit card fraud and skimming is an ongoing problem in the North Coast area.
“We would like to make our customers aware to be vigilant when on the move and to report matters of concern immediately to enable security to take prompt action in deterring the situation and creating a safe and secure shopping destination,” said Mariayia. Umhlali SAPS  also urged the public to be wary when withdrawing cash from machines and to check the ATM before using them.