Your domestic worker is not dead

WHILE the Easter weekend 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. There were three reported cases opened at the Durban North SAPS and Northglen News were contacted by an elderly resident who was almost caught out.

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 of the con-artists even used the Shembe’s annual pilgrimage to the Nhlangakazi Mountains, north of Durban, as the hook for his scam.

“He contacted the Durban North family pretending to be the domestic workers brother. He told them she had died while on the pilgrimage and that they needed money for her funeral,” he explained. Unable to contact the domestic worker via cellphone, the couple assumed the story to be true and bought R500 worth of airtime for the scammer.

“The man then phoned back later demanding R15 000 for the funeral. The family then contacted the Durban North police station. When one of the captains on duty phoned the number back saying he was from the police, the con-artist cut the call and switched SIM cards,” Deokaran said.

Another resident who wanted to remain anonymous said she had two of the most frightening days of her life, after she was told her domestic worker had died.

“My carer was off for the long week-end and on Saturday evening the phone rang and a man told me that she had been killed in a car crash, when I tried to find out what had happened I was asked to purchase R300 Vodacom airtime in the sim card number he gave me.

This I did. After that I was told that the people with her needed R5000 to move the body. Fortunately there was no way that I could get that amount of money until Tuesday, but I said I would try. Four different men phoned me that evening and the next morning from 6.45am until 9.30am

“In the meantime I phoned my carer’s cell phone and found she was alive. The scam calls came twice more but I have heard nothing since,” she said.

Deokaran urged residents to have at least two numbers of family members of their domestic worker.