Rose Harrison, an elderly woman who recently had R5 000 stolen from her bank account has been targeted for the second time in a little over a month.
Harrison, 69, fell victim to another ATM scam on Tuesday, 7 March at the very same ABSA ATM in the Randfontein Central Business District (CBD) where she was last targeted.
Fortunately, this time around there was no money in her account as she had vowed not to keep money in her current account after the last theft.
She explained how she went to the ATM just after 6am when a man she assumed was a security guard came to ‘assist’ her at the ATM.
“He was wearing blue jacket that looked like a security jacket. He came to me and said I had to lift my card when I put it in the machine. Then he took my hand to ‘help’ me lift the card into the slot – and my card was gone,’ she said.
The bogus security guard then tried to ‘assist’ her to get her card back and requested her to send her ID number and ATM pin via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) by dialling *100*ID number*ATM pin*.
After doing what he said, Harrison realised she was being scammed and immediately stopped her card and went to get a new one.
“I had to pay R110 for a new card,” she said in exasperation.
Harrison wishes to warn the town about theft at ATMs and urged resident to be careful and not to pay attention to anyone who claims to be of assistance.
“We’re not safe any more. We need to be so careful when withdrawing money,” she said.
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