We were scammed too!

In October 2014 I was a victim of cybercrime – in exactly the same way as Wicus Pretorius (YOU, 18 May). It was an illegal SIM swop at MTN. I needed to do internet banking but my phone was blocked. I couldn’t get through to MTN but I sent them an email asking what could have been wrong with my phone. Nobody ever got back to me.

I contacted Standard Bank to ask them to change my one-time pin from SMS to email so I could do my payment. I was able to do my payment but I couldn’t go to the MTN store until after 5 pm. They tried my SIM in their phone and it didn’t work. They called an expert to ask if they could see if my SIM was damaged. The person on the phone said I should just take my SIM out of the phone and keep trying to put it back as there was nothing wrong with the SIM.

I got home fairly late and then went to pay staff wages and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that all my money from all my linked accounts had been taken out. I could see a few strange beneficiaries had been paid. I immediately called the bank and at first they said they couldn’t see anything had been taken out. After five minutes or so they could see it and stopped my account. Only a small amount could be recovered.

The person in the fraud department asked me if I’d recently applied for any loans or bonds. I had, in fact, and I immediately thought that this is how my information had been passed along. Standard Bank insisted that I must have given out my password or had clicked on something that enabled me to be hacked.

I’ve always been aware of this and didn’t open anything nor did I give my passwords to anyone.

Sadly my younger sister passed away from leukemia in May 2015 and I never had the energy to fight the bank further. I feel strongly that banks and service providers must take responsibility! I’m convinced it’s an inside job. SANDRA FAIRFAX, EMAIL

I was a victim of a banking scam when I received an email stating that money had been paid into my account. I was distracted and clicked on it as I was expecting a cheque.

I sensed immediately that this may be something untoward and sped off to the bank, to be told that an amount of R15 000 had been withdrawn from my account, all within seconds!

I completed some forms and they eventually recovered R8 200. When I enquired when the rest would follow, they advised me that the balance was at the discretion of the bank manager!

Sadly, I was never reimbursed the balance, despite being a loyal client. It was a hard lesson learnt, so please be well aware, people! WIDOW, RANDBURG