Another ATM fraud victim speaks out
'Trust no one. It's a reality' — victim.
“Trust no one. It’s sad but it’s a reality,” is what a resident had to say after falling victim to ATM fraud at the Greenhills circle.
Although this happened to the victim, JP de Beer, some time ago, it has now become obvious the Greenhills circle is not the place to withdraw money.
De Beer explained he fell prey to fraud at the Greenhills circle on Tuesday 14 October last year while using the FNB ATM.
“I arrived just before 6pm to draw some cash for lunch for the rest of my work week. I then noticed a while VW Polo parked across the building next to the Nedbank box-ATM when I was going to draw money. At first I did not think much about it.”
Like in the other cases, there was a man standing in front of De Beer, ‘busy’ at the ATM before the incident took place.
“He was a man about 1,84m tall, well built, wearing jeans and a T-shirt,” de Beer said.
“The man was not busy for long and left his slip in the ATM. Just before I inserted my card into the machine, the man came back and took his slip.
He turned around an approached me again. By that time, I already entered my pin. He did not see my pin as he was still on his way back towards me. While I waited for the machine to display my options, he said in a very polite way that FNB has changed the options on the screen. He pointed with his index finger to the menu.”
De Beer said he told the man that he was not aware of the change and thanked him for letting him know.
“He said just push the cancel button then you can start again.” De Beer proceeded to push the cancel button and while waiting for the card to return the man left. “He got in the passenger seat and took off in the direction of Spar.”
The men were not even out of the parking lot when he received an SMS notification, de Beer explained. He said at the very same time, the screen switched back to the main menu as if it were ready for the next customer. “The only thing is my card was swallowed,” he said.
De Beer immediately called the lost and stolen card number. “It said: FNB :-) R4000.00 withdrawn from cheq a/c..******* @ Elite Ce ATM. Avail R****. 14Oct 17:53
“Where all the ***** is, was an unknown account number. Was a very long number. Something like 25 digits but it was a lot of zeros. I looked something like this 00000000000000012345,” he explained.
R4 000 was found to be taken out of his account. De Beer opened up a case at the Randfontein police station. After the incident, FNB agreed to replace the money.
I was shocked. In general, I’m a smart guy, always awake and aware of my surroundings and I never in my wildest dreams thought that someone would outsmart me doing something as simple as that.”
De Beer states that he is more cautions now and rather makes use of the FNB’s card less cash service.
“You withdraw money from your app, the app provides you with a once-off pin valid for only a couple of minutes. You go to the FNB ATM, enter that pin follow the prompts, take your money and go.”
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