Social grant beneficiaries urged to remain alert
The public is requested to report these incidents immediately to the police or contact Sassa on 0800601011.
THE South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has urged social grant beneficiaries to remain cautious. This comes after Sassa was notified about a new modus operandi used to scam and defraud social grant beneficiaries since the beginning of the pandemic.
Sassa CEO, Totsie Memela said scammers claim to be Sassa employees who move around in communities with skimming devices to defraud beneficiaries of their social grant monies.
“The fraudsters approach beneficiaries and convince them to “check” if their social grant cards are still valid by swiping them through a device. By so doing, the scammers are then skimming the beneficiaries’ card for later cloning. This then gives the scammers time to load a beneficiary’s information onto a new card and withdraw all the money,” she said.
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“We do not know as yet if they also ask beneficiaries to enter their card PIN, however in such cases, beneficiaries are advised to always keep their social grant payment card PINs safe and to themselves,” she added.
Sassa has urged all social grant beneficiaries to be alert and not to co-operate with anyone who requests for their cards in the street or at home.
SASSA does not send its staff to people’s homes to tamper with their cards. The public is requested to report these incidents immediately to the police or contact Sassa on 0800601011 or via social media.
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