What a crazy two weeks. I thought we were never going to get through this.
So, two weeks ago I lost a very special someone (may her beautiful soul rest in peace).
She died in hospital after being in ICU for a week. It was the most painful experience for my family and I doubt we’ll get over this anytime soon.
Two days after the funeral my grandmother gave me her Sassa card to go and collect her pension.
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I normally get it from the supermarket because there are no charges.
I tried for two days to get her pension from two different supermarkets but it kept saying incorrect pin and declined.
I got home and told her she must go to the post office and tell them what happened and get it sorted out.
Guess what? She found out that her money had been withdrawn a week ago at an FNB atm.
All her pension money gone, just like that.
The worst thing is no one knows how and where, so they cannot locate where the money was withdrawn, they could only give us a date and time.
Then they said they will investigate and try and find out how this happened and who committed the crime. I could not let it go I needed questions answered.
Eventually, after asking questions of the manager he told me that it’s definitely the scammers but for the scammers to obtain a beneficiary’s pin they would need a person inside to work with them.
This money was taken by scammers who work in cahoots with people inside the post office or Sassa.
As much as they said they will investigate and the money will be refunded I know for a fact that investigation will never succeed.
In my granny’s case, money is not really an issue, but the issue is that we cannot trust the people who work in these offices.
Worst case scenario, we live in communities where there are families who survive on this pension.
What if it was someone else’s gogo who borrowed money from a neighbour to go to town knowing that she will get her pension and pay it back?
What if it was a gogo whose grandchildren have nothing to eat and were waiting for her to come home with food?
This shows how vulnerable the pension system is and that some people who are handling this money cannot be trusted.
Their system is so vulnerable that they cannot even trace to check who last worked on a certain card number, so they can be investigated how they changed the pin without the card holder’s approval.
I can bet right now that the post office will never get back to us with answers to our questions.
My advice is if you live with a pensioner who is still using the Sassa card, change it to a bank card.
It is safer at the bank than in the hands of some people.
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