Police have received information of a cell-phone scam that is still running and members of the community should be wary of.
An elderly Ladysmith resident received an SMS stating that she had won a prize in a competition involving her SIM card and cell-phone number. She sent an SMS back to enquire about the competition. The sender of the SMS then requested that she first send airtime to a specific number. This she did. The resident was then phoned and given a reference number. The caller told her that she would be contacted by a person from the Barclays Bank of Scotland. She was also asked to provide her name, ID number and address so that they could verify her details for the delivery of the prize. Someone then did contact her, claiming to be from the bank in Scotland and asking for her reference number. After the resident had read the reference number to the caller, she realised she had given an incorrect number. Yet the caller was still claiming she had won. This is when she realised it was a scam. She then refused to give out her bank details and declined to speak to the callers again. The resident says she was distracted on the day in question and would ordinarily never respond to such an SMS. She also pointed out that the callers were very well spoken.
You can avoid becoming the victim of a scam by following these simple rules:
If a company or business name is mentioned, do research on it. Consult the business directory to verify the existence of the business and get their land-line number. Contact them to verify the information contained in the SMS and the business street address. Do not phone the number supplied to you via the SMS. Visit the business address personally if you can or get someone you trust to do so.
Ask yourself this question: Have I entered a competition or bought a lottery ticket to which the SMS is referring. If you have not, then why would someone be contacting you about it? It must therefore be a scam!
People who win competitions are not asked to deposit money to release their prize, nor are they asked for airtime vouchers. This should immediately alert you to the fact that something untoward is going on.
Do not engage in dialogue with a suspected scam artist, as they can be very convincing. Ignore or delete SMSs like this. Do not allow greed to override your common sense; if it sounds too good to be true, then it’s likely to be a scam.
