‘Skillful’ scamster dupes locals
"I gave her food and R300 for a bus ticket, and actually all she asked of me was to call her mother.”
Police in Muckleneuk are warning residents to be vigilant when approached by strangers.
This after several locals reported being conned out of money by an “exceptionally skillful scamster” – a young girl who claims to desperately need a bus ticket back to Nelspruit or Komatipoort.
“It is important that residents are vigilant when approached by a stranger,” said Sunnyside police spokesperson Captain Daniel Mavimbela.
Mavimbela said police did come across false prophets also scamming locals.
He said cases would peak during the months of January and February, and that scamsters targeted young students; however, this year was quiet.
“I have sympathy with residents who was conned out of money because it is not always easy to tell whether someone is lying, or indeed desperately needed help.
Carol Baron (68) was scammed by the young girl, after the girl rang her bell at 18:25 last Monday evening in Muckleneuk.
“I invited her in and offered her a sandwich and a cooldrink. I even packed her food and cooldrink for her journey. As she said she is allergic to bread, so I packed her nuts, cheese and fruit.
“I gave her R300 for a bus ticket and dropped her off at the bus stop where she said she needed to catch a bus to Parktown bus station to catch the bus at 19:40 to Nelspruit. All she actually asked was to call her mother,” Baron said.
“She was very convincing and had an answer for any question I had.”
Baron said the girl used her phone to call her mother, but the mother didn’t answer and she left a message in Portuguese.
“I could hear she said ‘mama’. As I questioned her, she convinced me that she comes to Hatfield once a month to buy material for her and her mother to make things which her mother sold.”
She dropped the girl at a petrol station in Lynnwood’s Rossouw Street.
Afterwards, Baron discussed the incident with a neighbour who recognised the modus operandi and told Baron that another person in the neighbourhood had reported a similar incident.
“I drove back to the petrol station where I dropped her off. There was no trace of her.
“I approached a security guard on the premises. We checked the footage. I saw her leaving two minutes after I dropped her off.”
Another Muckleneuk resident, Joha Haasbroek (31), said she found a young, well-dressed girl “crying hysterically” at her gate on 19 December around 19:30.
She said she believed it to be the same girl that scammed Baron.
“She told me she was 16 and from Mozambique and spoke Portuguese; however, I would say she might be 20 or in her early twenties,” Haasbroek said.
“She told me she came to Pretoria to shop at Brooklyn when her bus ticket got stolen at the Gautrain station in Hatfield.”
Haasbroek said although she was suspicious the girl cried so much she couldn’t be sure, and felt too embarrassed to interrogate her.
“I thought it could be possible that she was robbed. And she is a woman, and it is late at night, and she has no one to help her.”
The girl requested to be dropped off at Menlyn where she had to buy the bus ticket to Komatipoort.
“I called someone to accompany me to drop her off and I offered to buy her another bus ticket. She said it was R400 and that she preferred cash.
“When we got to Menlyn, she requested to be dropped off near the entrance of Time Square Casino. She gave me her phone number and said she would EFT me the money for the bus ticket I spent.
“The number, however, doesn’t work and I never heard from her again.”
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