Banking fraud hits local lodge
Arbour Lodge owners Bill and Marion Ashmole lost R15 000 from their Standard Bank account through online fraud in November last year.
Not only was the loss traumatic, but the couple, who have been clients of the bank for more than 30 years, are terribly disappointed in the way they are being treated by the bank's head-office.
Countless e-mails and calls to the call centre, visits to the local branch, and efforts to lay a complaint with the banking ombud have brought them nowhere nearer to a response to many unanswered questions about the incident. They allege that the bank is shrugging off any responsibility.
The money in their Standard Bank account was transferred to an unknown beneficiary on 3 November. Mrs Ashmole had earlier in the day opened an e-mail which appeared to be from Standard
Bank, and was subsequently verified by several George branch staff as having the correct Standard Bank logo. The e-mail stated that it was a proof of payment (which they were expecting for a booking). Mrs Ashmole clicked on the attachment, as she had done in the past to open their monthly bank statement and other payment notifications. It took her to a fake Standard Bank website where she was prompted to type in her username and password. Later, when she logged into their account, she discovered to her horror that the money had been transferred to a Capitec account.
Mr Ashmole says that no OTP (one-time password) was entered into their computer, as the bank is alleging. "When my wife opened the e-mail, she did not need an OTP. The phone was with me."
Their journey from then on, trying to obtain information from the bank's fraud department, was a nightmare. Four days after they informed the bank of the incident, an official called to say that the case was closed and the bank was not taking any responsibility. The bank was able to recover only R240.
The Ashmoles allege that, over the following months, their e-mails and requests for answers were bluntly ignored. "Head-office treats me as if I do not exist. We want to know how a third party was able to create himself a beneficiary and transfer R15 000 from our account."
The banking ombud also did not respond to his faxed complaint in December, nor to several subsequent e-mails, one of which was sent to the ombud via the Standard Bank George branch manager, Susan Leendertz.
Standard Bank responds
Responding to a query from the George Herald, Standard Bank wrote, "The customers were the victim of internet banking fraud and unfortunately compromised their private and confidential sign-on credentials to the fraudsters. By the time the fraud was reported, most of the funds had been withdrawn by way of ATM cash withdrawals, and the amount refunded to them was the amount secured from the beneficiary accounts."
Ombud denies complaint
The ombud spokesperson, Karin van Rooyen, told the newspaper that no record of the Ashmoles' complaint could be found on their system. This is contrary to documentation that the Ashmoles supplied to the newspaper. Among others, they completed and submitted the complaints form three times.
It was only after the ombud received the Ashmoles' documentation from the George Herald that Ronél van der Merwe, manager of case processing, informed the Ashmoles that a formal file has been opened and the matter has been escalated to the investigations department.