Police issue fraud warning

Police in Virginia have warned that a network of conmen could be on the loose in the gold mining town following reports of people claiming that they had been swindled of thousands of rands by people purporting to be offering loans.

Two cases involving over R75 000 are currently being investigated.

Police spokesperson Captain Malebo Khosana said the latest incident involving an undisclosed amount of money was reported yesterday.

The modus operandi of the conmen who seem well versed with financial transactions is that they call their victims and tell them that they qualify for a loan before asking to confirm their banking details. In one incident that occurred between August 27 and September 7 this year, an amount of R65 900 was allegedly taken from the account of a 51 year old female residing in Meloding.

The victim, according to Khosana, initially received a call from a lady telling her that she is calling from her bank’s head office and that she qualified for a loan at the bank.

The woman then went to the local branch of the bank to apply for a loan and it was declined.

But on September 6 she received an SMS saying her loan for R65 900 had been approved.

The following day she received another message saying that that she would be receiving a call from a consultant shortly. When the alleged consultant called, he asked for the last four digits of the bank card but she refused to disclose them.

The man then told her that failure to do so would result in the bank reversing the loan.

The woman, according to the police, said while still talking to the alleged consultant, an SMS came through saying “Transferred to Thabo” and when she asked him about it, he dropped the phone. She checked with the bank and it was confirmed that the R65 900 deposited into her account had been withdrawn.

The second incident which occurred at the end of September, a 54 year old male received a call from a lady who told him that she was calling from his bank’s head office. She asked for his personal banking details and he complied. While busy talking she asked him about the deductions made from his account by an American company.

The complainant said the caller then asked for his bank card number in order for her to trace the debit order and he also gave her. She promised to call him after stopping the debit order but she never did.

He then called her the following day but the call went unanswered. Instead, he received a call from his wife who asked him about withdrawals after getting SMS notifications on her phone. When they checked, R9 400 had been withdrawn from the bank account.