Sassa grants targeted in festive scam

GRANT beneficiaries have been cautioned about scammers trying their luck this festive season.

The latest reported scare involves conmen claiming to offer a R400 Sassa Christmas food hamper in exchange for personal information, including card pin numbers.

Regional SA State Security Agency (Sassa) spokesperson Shivani Wahab said the agency would never offer food vouchers or any reward in return for information.

Sassa is mandated to manage and pay out social grants, and pays out about R10.6 billion to more than 16 million people a month. “We would like to request social grant beneficiaries to be vigilant, especially with the festive season approaching. All social grant beneficiaries are susceptible to marketing of financial products and extortion by people with sinister intentions.

“In some cases social grant beneficiaries have been inundated with text messages urging them to obtain new Sassa cards.

“We reiterate that Sassa never communicates with its beneficiaries via SMS, and beneficiaries are warned not to respond to any SMS messages.”

Wahab said the danger of responding to these scams was that beneficiaries could be stripped of their cash or unusual deductions, which they never authorised, could possibly be deducted off their social grants in future.

Social justice and human rights group Black Sash’s national advocacy manager and spokesperson, Elroy Paulus, said since Sassa instructed its service provider, Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), owned by Net1, to remove a debit order facility from Sassa branded cards, the group noticed an acceleration in unauthorised deductions.

Black Sash has for years been running a “Hands Off Our Grants campaign” to force Sassa to prevent deductions.