Beware of ‘Dr Tumelo’

POLOKWANE – Residents are warned to be on the alert and aware of a possible scam by a man who calls himself Dr Tumelo.

This person put up an advert of vacancies at Redimed in various places in the city, in which it also said he was collecting curriculum vitaes (CV’s) on behalf of Redimed. The vacancies advertised were for a personal assistant as well as secretarial and administrative workers.

Office manager for Redimed 24, Sonya van den Heever, confirmed that Redimed 24 had no relationship with a Dr Tumelo and that there were no vacancies at their practice.

“We urge residents to distance themselves from this person. I can confirm that when we do have vacancies we will advertise in our local newspapers and we will also not request someone to accept CV’s on our behalf. People will also not be asked to pay for their CV’s to be submitted, or to pay for any training,” Van den Heever said.

She also confirmed that they had alerted the police about this incident, but no formal complaint was opened.

Capt Ntobeng Phala, Polokwane police spokesperson, confirmed that the police were aware of this problem. He said three men reported the matter to the police in June.

“These three men came to the Polokwane police station on June 3 and alerted us of the problem. The men contacted the person after seeing the advert and when the person asked for money they suspected something was wrong and came to the police to report the matter. No case was opened,” Phala said.

According to Phala, the three men who had reported to the police, said there were a lot of people who had shown interest in the advert and could possibly be victims of this scam.

Phala urged residents who might have been a victim of this scam to come forward and report the matter to their nearest police station or at the Polokwane police station.

“We received information that this Dr Tumelo operates from Platinum Park, Bendor and he also supplied a landline number, but when we called this number we found that it belongs to another company.

“He explains to each applicant that he only needs 10 CV’s and that he already has nine and only needs one more. He also tells the applicants that they will have to go for training in Mokopane and there is transport available at R250. He requests that the people pay the money via a money market or at the Post Office. He tells them that only after sending him proof of payment, will he give them the details about when and where the transport will collect them,” Phala said.

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