Man fleeced of identity and R20 000
The scammers seemed to know everything about their victim.
IT was bad enough having R20 000 stolen out of his bank account, but a local businessman was even more alarmed to discover his identity had been ‘hijacked’ too.
Akin to something one might see in the movies, it appeared the crooks had managed to find out almost everything about him. Armed with the personal information, they cancelled his phone accounts and tried to go on a spending spree with his cheque book.
His problem started on Friday morning last week when he discovered that both his home and office landlines were out of order and that his cellphone wasn’t working either.
It was annoying, but he came to the conclusion it was some sort of general problem that would right itself eventually.
A little later, when he visited the local branch of his bank and requested a bank statement, he was puzzled to see someone had made a cheque withdrawal of R20 000 at another South Coast branch. The teller contacted the other branch and asked to have a copy of the cheque sent to her branch.
Alarm bells rang when the businessman saw the cheque number. It was from a new cheque book he’d ordered, but had not yet fetched from the main branch of the bank.
Although he was the only person authorised to collect the cheque book, a stranger had obtained it after providing the bank with a copy of the businessman’s ID and filling in all the forms correctly.
The businessman’s signature had been forged perfectly .
The cheques in that book were stopped, but within minutes his branch had received calls from three different branches in the Durban area saying people had been trying to cash cheques.
The scam became even more sinister when the businessman tried to phone his office from the bank, hoping the problem with his landline had since been resolved.
A stranger answered the telephone and, on being questioned, shouted that he was tired of being harassed and slammed down the phone.
About half an hour later, the businessman asked a relative to call the number and to tell whoever answered that she was from the bank.
Pretending to be the businessman, the stranger happily provided her with all the personal details she requested, including the businessman’s ID number, business and home street addresses.
However, when she asked the name of the businessman’s wife he became agitated and slammed the phone down.
Concerned about the strange developments, the businessman visited his cellphone provider – and was horrified to find that it had been de-registered. Someone had written a letter, using his company’s letterhead, asking for the contract to be cancelled,.
“It was all so alarming, ” he said. It was as if the scammers had stolen his complete identity.
Margate police have opened a docket and the fraud division of the bank concerned is also investigating.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram
For news straight to your phone, add us on BBM 58F3D7A7 or WhatsApp 082 421 6033
