POLOKWANE – ‘Ghost vendors’, as Eskom refers to fraudulent electricity sellers, are a common occurrence on social media pages these days.

These vendors are those who claim they sell prepaid electricity tokens at a fraction of the price offered by the usual outlets. With South Africans’ wallets feeling the pinch of constant price hikes, you may have felt tempted to buy from them – but Eskom has warned against this.

Review contacted the customer relations manager for Eskom in the Capricorn and Waterberg districts, Matshidiso Phaladi, who said those who have purchased from these ‘ghost vendors’ are liable for heavy penalties.

“When we do our audits, we can track that a customer’s purchases don’t correlate with the number of units on their meters. We then know these customers purchased from ghost vendors, and then we disconnect their services. We charge a remedial fee of R6 000 to reconnect these customers,” she explained and added that the fee is double if someone who has previously had to pay this fee, is found guilty again.

Illegal electricity tokens/vouchers DO NOT register on the Eskom system. Your account will reflect a poor buying history and be disconnected. You will be liable for a fine of over R6000.
Do the right thing. Purchase only legal electricity tokens. Do not buy from ghost vendors pic.twitter.com/XTeTEZfTSs

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) March 17, 2020

Phaladi said a customer who is found guilty of the same offence for a third time, will permanently be disconnected.

She explained how these ‘ghost vendors’ came into operation and admitted that these tokens do indeed work, even though it is illegal. “Prior to 2008, vending of prepaid electricity tokens was done offline. Residents had to purchase these tokens from accredited vendors and our technicians used to go to these vendors to ‘download’ these purchases. The process was protected by a security module, but when the process went online in early 2009, this module landed in the hands of criminals,” Phaladi elaborated.

She said criminals now have access to their meters and can successfully allocate tokens – at the expense of Eskom. “Customers aren’t provided with a receipt when they receive their prepaid tokens, and thus cannot verify their purchases when we do our audits. Besides customers being disconnected if found guilty of purchasing from these vendors, we have also had successful convictions of those vendors. They are serving jail time now,” Phaladi added.

She admitted that the process of catching these criminals is difficult. “The syndicate is very wide and operate in most parts of the country.”

They have had two incidents in the Capricorn and Waterberg districts in Limpopo, where residents’ houses were destroyed in fires, she said: “These residents claim it is as a result of their prepaid meters, but when we checked our system, we noted they did not purchase electricity from us. They then admitted purchasing from ghost vendors and we thus suspect the tokens may potentially harm the meters. No specific investigation into this has, however, been done”.