Carry your cash safely
JOBURG – Be careful when going to deposit large sums of money at the bank.
The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) continues to express concern at the number of bank clients that fall victim to cash robberies daily.
The centre said for the period January to September this, a decrease of 12 per cent was recorded when compared with the same period last year. Notwithstanding this decrease, the cash loss suffered for the 2016 period thus far has increased by 5 per cent.
Kalyani Pillay, Sabric chief executive officer said, “Unfortunately, the victim of these robberies is the client… The province with the highest incident rate is Gauteng followed by KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, Eastern Cape and North West, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Free State and the Northern Cape.”
Pillay explained that perpetrators operate in groups, and individuals referred to as ‘spotters’ enter the bank purporting to be clients and even queue to give the impression that they are bank clients.
Pillay said since 2015 and this year-to-date, Sabric recorded 10 tragic murders and 35 injuries of victims which resulted from such robberies. This year, 94 per cent of the incidents reported either occurred when the client was en route to the bank to deposit or after conducting a withdrawal. Although 31 per cent of the incidents is attributed to robbery before deposit, 63 per cent occur after a withdrawal and the remainder related to incidents at ATM’s and where clients were scammed by criminals after a cash withdrawal.
According to Pillay, Sabric has recorded 87 and 27 associated robbery-related arrests for the period 2015 and 2016, respectively. During this period four convictions were recorded with sentences varying between three and 15 years imprisonment.
Follow these tips to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of these robberies:
- Carry as little cash as possible
- Pay your accounts electronically using cellphone banking or internet transfers or ATMs to do your banking
- Alternate days and times when you deposit cash
- If you are depositing large amounts of money use the services of a cash management company
- Don’t pay your contract or casual labourers in public, rather make use of wage accounts that can be provided by your bank or transfer wages to contract or casual labourers’ personal bank accounts
- A stokvel savings club or burial society can arrange for members to deposit cash directly into the club’s account instead of collecting cash contributions
- Arrange for the club’s pay-out to be electronically transferred into each club member’s personal account or accounts of their choice.
Details: www.sabric.co.za
