A pre-school in Mamelodi East was almost scammed out of more than R5 000 by an unknown con artist recently.
The incident happened last month when an unknown man approached the school’s principal, pretending to register his two children.
According to the principal of Amogelang Pre-school, Mondi Makgalemela, the con artist came to the pre-school pretending to look for space for his children.
The man told her he was working in Bloemfontein and his company was relocating to Pretoria. He said he had found a room to rent in Mamelodi and he would like to register his children at the pre-school.
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The man is believed to be in his early 30s and to be using a fake name.
Makgalamela said the con artist asked about registration fees and monthly payments.
He then asked for the pre-school’s banking details and promised to deposit R1 820 in their account the following day.
“The money included the registration fee and two months’ advance payment.”
Makgalamela said afterwards she received a text message alerting her that R18 200 deposited into the school’s account, which was much more than the agreed upon amount.
The message, however, turned out to be a fake and no money was actually paid into the account.
The man later phoned the principal. He told her he had made a mistake and deposited the wrong amount into the account.
However, he said this was not a problem since “they knew each other”.
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He asked the principal to please send him at least R5 000 of the deposited money to give his wife to travel from Bloemfontein to Pretoria together with the two children.
Makgalemela said the con artist said he would get the rest of the overpaid money “later”.
Thandi Nzima, a teacher at the school, told the principal to double check whether the money was actually paid into the account before paying any of it “back” to the con artist.
That was when she discovered the message was a fake and no money was actually paid into the account.
Makgamela would like to warn other pre-schools in the area to be aware of the con artist.
The man called her again to deposit the money at Spar because his “wife needed it for travelling to Pretoria”.
When Makgalamela told him his money did not appear in the account, he said it took 48 hours for it to register in her account.
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He kept pushing for her to quickly deposit the money into his account though. At one stage, he also changed the amounts to R2 500 and R3 000.
He did this to appear “desperate” for his “wife” to get the money.
Makgalamela said she was worried about other pre-schools around Mamelodi being targeted because the alleged con artist had a list of various such schools with him.
She advised them to report anyone pretending to register two children to their pre-school using the same method to the police.
“We have not received any complaints in this regard,” police spokesperson Captain Johannes Maheso told Record.
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