Scammers cause Carletonville service group to shut down
Please watch out, as they try to con unsuspecting contacts to giving them money.
A new type of scamming on social media led to one of the most active community service WhatsApp groups in Carletonville having to close temporarily this week.
On Monday the Carletonville Ward 28’s WhatsApp community group, called Extension 8 and 9 Services, was in turmoil after scammers managed to hack the phone of one of the administrators.
According to the area’s ward councillor, Carlos Rebelo, he became aware that something was wrong when the administration rights of himself and other administrators were suddenly removed. After some time, they realised that the phone of one of the administrators had been hacked, and the hackers took over the administration rights of the group.
“The group was started by some of the active community members and they later added me as an admin. We immediately advised everyone to exit the group because we were afraid that the hackers could target them as well since they now had everyone’s phone numbers,” says Rebelo. Community members started a new WhatsApp group for the same area and purpose later that day.
The way that the hackers operate became clear when these online thugs also tried to target one of Rebelo’s staff members early the same morning. The scammer contacted the employee and alleged that a six-digit code, which was meant for them, accidentally went to the number of the employee. The scammer asked that the employee send the code back to them urgently. The employee realised what was going on and did not respond. Upon this, the scammer deleted the messages in which they asked for the code and swore at the employee.
On Wednesday afternoon the scammer even went so far as warning people who were still on the old group that they must leave it immediately.
“You All just have 10 minutes to leave the group before I get into your inboxes,” the criminal warned.
Rebelo says that he traced the scammer’s telephone number, and that it, according to the area code, seems to be someone from the United States.
Rebelo says that although this is the first time that he had heard of this happening in Carletonville, another councillor had their phone hacked in the same way about a month ago. The scammers then went on to send WhatsApp messages to all their contacts, saying that they had a problem and urgently wanted to borrow some money.
“People must be very careful so that they do not fall prey to these scams. If it can happen to us, it can happen to other people as well,” he warned. The Fochville CPF also warned residents of these scammers over the weekend, which shows that they are not only active in Carletonville.
Meanwhile, Rebelo says that anyone who stays in his ward, has service delivery problems and has not yet been transferred to the new group, can contact him directly at 082 892 4603.
