Scam artist cons Mokopane business owners
A bank scam artist conned business owners in Mokopane out of a pocketful of money, claiming to be a well-known security company.
MOKOPANE – Gary O’Farrell, owner of Special Operations Solutions (SOS) says he knows of two of his clients who were conned by an e-mail hacker. The hacker intersected SOS’s invoices and sent it to their clients via e-mail, claims O’Farrell. He reckons that within a day the hacker sent out a fake e-mail to SOS clients.
“The hacker changed SOS’ banking details on the invoice and thereafter sent the fake invoice, accompanied by a fake bank letter, to the clients. The clients were phoned to confirm the banking details have changed and payment must be deposited into the new account as per bank letter.
“The fabricated letter is on a bank letterhead with a bank stamp and only when you compare the real deal to the fake one, you will realise which is which.”
O’Farrell says that if it were not for SOS’ well-trained staff, the hacker might have gotten away with millions. “The public must be alert and pay special attention to small differences between documentation. Rather phone your supplier whenever you receive a notification of a banking detail change to confirm the authenticity.”
He warns the public to never reply to an e-mail address that have two different Gmail addresses, for example g.graaf@gmail.com. O’Farrell explained to Bosveld that this is a fraudulent account with one email address but two different Gmail accounts.
“Our clients reported the incidents and it’s currently being investigated,” he concluded.
The Branch Manager of Absa, Clifford Makamu told Bosveld that no one should accept that a suppliers’ banking details have changed before he confirmed with the supplier. “Absa will never address a client as ‘Dear Client/Customer’ but always by your name. The web address must start with “https”. The ‘s’ indicates that it is a secure website. We will never ask you to enter your entire password on our secure website, you will be asked to enter three random characters of your password. Be suspicious if the process to conduct a transaction differs from the normal process. Read your RVN, TVN and SureCheck messages in detail when you receive them.”
redaksie.bosvelder@nmgroup.co.za
