New phone scam?

An elderly resident of Helikon Park alerted the Herald about what he thinks is a new scam to later find out it was the real deal which he is still not happy about.

Johannes Louis Fourie, 78, from Helikon Park said he has been called by what he believes to be fraudsters possibly trying to gain access to his property.

We’ve received various calls from people claiming to be Telkom. They say that they’re going to change all the private telephone lines to wireless lines because of all the cable theft,” he said.

Fourie told them he has a Telkom business line as well and needs a high-speed line for his business. He asked them if the line they will be installing is going be as fast or faster than his business line.

“I asked her if it would be faster and she couldn’t tell me. She didn’t know. She said they were only doing the private lines for now. I know they’re installing fiber optic wires everywhere, so how could they suddenly offer this?” he asked.

Fourie investigated and tried calling the two contact numbers.

“Every time I called, they just drop the phone.”

The Herald also tried to call the contact numbers Fourie supplied and experienced the same.

The most recent call Fourie received was on Tuesday, 1 March. His wife answered the phone, but they refused to talk to her; they only wanted to talk to him.

“I suspect they specifically want to speak to me because the line is registered to my name. That’s how it appears in the phone book. I think they go through the phone book to get numbers.”

He said the service they are carrying out allegedly is free, but most likely is a ploy to gain access to homes.

I think they want to gain access to properties for some criminal objective. Either that or they’re charging Telkom a fee for performing a service unlawfully,” Fourie said.

Fourie later found out that the scam was the real deal. “My sister’s phone was replaced when it just went dead one day. She said she wanted them to come out to fix the issue when suddenly they replaced the phone with a wireless one,”

He said he then approached the Telkom technicians about the matter and they allegedly confirmed that all the lines will be replaced and residents have no choice.

“This is a concern for me because there were no flyers given out. We were not notified. What happens with a wireless phone during bad weather? What if the power goes out? These things usually depend on the power supply which means it might go off in that case. I feel I don’t want my phone to be replaced by an inferior product,” he said.

The Herald has yet to reach Telkom for comment on the matter.

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