The Hercules police are asking residents to be cautious about a recent and currently ongoing scam requiring residents to deposit money to receive make-believe winnings.
The station reports to have received several calls in recent days from residents reporting the same scam. The scammer informs the victim that they’ve won a cash prize and need to deposit money to retrieve it.
“We had a complainant who received a call from a caller claiming to be from Vodacom; the caller identified himself as Thabiso Majare. He told the complainant that she won a competition and a prize money of R3 000 and a grocery voucher of R5 000. The caller told the victim to deposit cash of R300 in a Standard Bank account for him to be able to activate the transfer. She was ordered again to deposit another amount to activate her cash. She realised that it was a scam. Then she came to open a fraud case,” said police spokesperson Sergeant Dikeledi Bopape.
Bopape appealed to residents to be cautious before parting with their money and verifying the information relayed to them.
“If you know that you didn’t enter any competition, do not fall for the trap.”
In another complaint, scammers were able to make off with over R5 000 of a victim’s savings.
“The complainant received a call from an unknown person who introduced himself as an ABSA worker and said that they suspect there is fraudulent activity in the complainant’s account. He instructed the complainant to open their banking app and follow the steps, and give them their OTP Pin. After that phone call was dropped, an amount of R5 778.27 was deducted from the complainant’s account,” Bopape said.
Residents are urged not to give their banking details online or over the phone to unverifiable callers and to accept any award in a competition that they didn’t enter.
Police urged anyone contacted by such scammers to contact their local authorities.
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