EDITOR – I am very grateful that through the medium of your newspaper, I have been warned about a scam. If I hadn’t been warned, we may very well have fallen victim.
The criminals phone the employer and tell them that their domestic worker has died. They then appeal for money for the funeral.
On Friday, 15 January, I returned home from shopping and my domestic worker told me the Department of Labour had phoned on our landline. They confirmed what her name was, and that she was working for us. They had our names as well. They asked her how much she earned.
When she tried to ask questions, they told her they were too busy to answer any questions as they had many people to phone.
I was suspicious, but we pay her UIF and so I thought that the Department of Labour may be phoning to check. However, I shared my suspicions with her.
The next day someone phoned her at home and said they were from her cellphone network and they told her that they would be working on the network and that she must not switch on her phone on Sunday until after midday.
Early on Sunday before 7am, someone who claimed to be our domestic worker’s brother, Vusi, phoned our landline and told us that she had died the previous afternoon. Fortunately we know our domestic worker’s family, we know she doesn’t have a brother called Vusi and we have the contact numbers for family members. So we told him that we would phone her son.
When we finally got hold of our domestic worker, she was very much alive.
I am very concerned as these scam artists must have access to a database which has so many of our private details. They had our landline number, our names, our domestic worker’s name, her contact number and perhaps they even have our address.
We have given those details to the Department of Labour in order to register her for UIF. Is someone there sharing these details with criminals?
I want to warn other employers of this scam and I also would be interested to heard from others who have fallen victim.
Almost a Victim
Westville
