The scamsters are getting desperate to
steal our hard earned earnings/savings and we need to outsmart them.
We are sharing a piece received from one of
our WhatsApp friends whose smart action prevented in the loss of her valuable money
from being stolen from her bank account: We are reproducing the same as received
by sharing as received and keeping intact our friend’s privacy!
Emphasis on particular words and additions
is ours!
Quote
Yesterday, (29th Jan 2018), I
received notification on my cell phone of a deposit into my account of R82 000.
I could not work out who would have deposited it, only a reference J002.
At midday yesterday I received a call from
(so called) “Revenue dept" stating that they had erroneously
deposited a (possibly to fool by trying to make it genuine) VAT Return
of R82 000 into my bank account, Reference J002 (to make it
appear genuine) and that they needed me to reverse this payment
(note the choice of words) as it should have done to TLB Towers.
They faxed through to me a very official
looking letter with all the information and their banking details.
Last night I went into my banking to do the transfer but decided to print a
bank statement first. I saw that the R82 000 was in my account but still "uncleared".
Gut feelings were quite strong so I did
not reverse the amount but waited till this
morning to phone my bank. They could not identify who the deposit came
from. I then asked to be transferred to the risk/fraud division and explained
everything to them, (smart decision).
The investigators
phoned me a short while ago to let me know that this was a scam,
1) The
bank account that I was to transfer into was a personal account with no
funds in presently.
2)
They also expect that the cheque deposited into my account will be a
stolen cheque
3)
And will bounce and they would reverse it in a few days.
This means that I would have "paid
back" the money into someone's private account, they
would have withdrawn the money, and then the cheque would have bounced,
leaving me with R82 000 less in my account, (stealing acquires new dimensions).
Request of our friend
Please can you pass this onto everyone that
you know? (Done)
I have been advised that this is
happening with people saying that they are from TELECOM, Water and Electricity
Municipal Departments etc.
Her Advice
When someone pays money into your
account by error, that person has to report it to the bank FIRST for THE BANK
to do the REVERSAL NOT YOU!!
