Domestic worker funeral scam costs Durban North resident
Local resident conned out of R1 000 through domestic worker scam.
WHILE the long weekends provided some welcome respite from the daily drudgery of work, it was also an ideal time for fraudsters to go to work, using the now popular ‘Your domestic worker has died’ scam. This comes after a case of fraud was opened at the Durban North SAPS.
Their modus operandi is to try get sensitive information about employers in order to con them out of money. According to Lt Raymond Deokaran from the SAPS, one Durban North resident paid R1 000 to a man claiming to be a relative of a ‘deceased’ domestic worker.
“She was asked to deposit the money in a Money Market account, which she did. The domestic worker returned to work a day later after the money had been stolen,” he said.
Deokaran said this sort of scam normally occurs around the festive period and the Easter weekend.
Last year six cases were reported in the lead-up to and through the long weekend.
In previous incidents, the scammers phoned the domestic worker under the pretext of being from the Labour Department. They asked the domestic worker questions about her family and work. When they’ve set the scam in motion, they normally contact the domestic worker before they make the call to the distraught victims by pretending to be from a mobile network.
“They ask the domestic worker to switch off her phone for a few hours under the auspices of performing routine maintenance on the network. Speak to your domestic workers and tell them not to give out personal information,” he said.
Deokaran urged victims to report incidents of the scam to their nearest police station.
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