Durban North resident falls victim to debit order scams
According to SABRIC, these scams are prevalent and should be monitored closely.
THE South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) has encouraged consumers to make sure they have constant communication with their banks.
This comes shortly after a concerned resident took to Facebook, warning the public of unauthorised debit orders that go off on her bank account.
Marlene Van Der Westhuizen said she received a SMS stating that a company had lodged a R99 debit order from her account.
While the name of the company that was listed in the SMS, Van Der Westhuizen said she ignored it since she was not aware of it and was not authorised to debit her account.
The Durban North resident said she assumed the message was sent to her in error.
But when she checked her statement she realised that the money was in fact debited from her account – she tried to contact them.
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“The phone number doesn’t get answered – you can leave a message or press 0 for an operator and that’s all that happens. The number on the website ‘doesn’t exist’. I’ve done a search on Google and discovered a whole lot of people complaining about this on Hello Peter. I’ve phoned my bank, got the R99 reversed and put a stop payment in place. The bank also informed me that they are working on new security options that will require you to approve a debit order before it can be debited. In the meantime I’m advised to keep an eye on my account to see if it happens again, but they doubt it will. Please be vigilant,” said Van Der Westhuizen.
According to SABRIC, these scams are prevalent and should be monitored closely.
“SABRIC encourages bank clients to register for SMS notifications from their banks so that they are alerted to transactions done on their bank accounts, as they occur. Should any transaction be disputed, they must contact their own bank immediately,” said SABRIC CEO Kalyani Pillay.
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The Payments Association of South Africa (PASA) also weighed in on the matter saying they foresee that the number of invalid debit orders being processed as well as the number of consumer disputes where valid mandates are in place will rapidly decline. PASA also emphasised that banks do not benefit from these illegal debits.
“Banks do not benefit from debit order abuse. The biggest problem we have in the debit order abuse space remains that of consumers disputing valid debit orders (i.e. debit orders they have agreed to), bank charges could be used as a means to discourage consumers to unnecessarily dispute debit orders. If a bank customer falls victim to a legitimate unauthorised debit order, and they are unhappy about the bank charges, they can lodge their dissatisfaction with their bank, or even the Banking Ombud,” said PASA CEO Walter Volker.
Pillay added that the bank should be able to guide them through the necessary steps to have the transaction reversed.
“The bank will also help to prevent it from happening again. We further encourage bank clients to only share personal information like bank account details when absolutely necessary. Keeping your personal information as confidential as possible will make it more difficult for unscrupulous entities to defraud you,” Pillay said.
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