Be warned: Water meter ‘con’ continues
The con artists seem to be targeting pensioners.
WATER meter con men are still fleecing unsuspecting South Coasters of thousands, in spite of numerous warnings in the media… and even an exposé on Carte Blanche some months ago.
Meanwhile, Ugu Municipality seems no nearer to tightening the tap on the ‘well-spoken, well informed and very persuasive gentlemen’ who prey mostly on the elderly, promising to save them a fortune on their water bills. (Some time ago, bogus ‘technicians’ from Eskom were also doing the rounds.)
Victims who have spoken to the Herald and our sister newspaper, the Mid South Coast Mail, said that the con artists seemed to have an ‘amazing amount of personal detail’ and they suspected that the hoods might well have contacts ‘inside Ugu’.
Ugu is investigating and is even calling on experts to see if anyone has hacked into data bases, but so far in vain.
However, once again, they issued an urgent warning to people not to open their door to anyone claiming to be an Ugu or Eskom representative, unless they had proper identification.
In the most recent incident, an elderly couple from Margate were conned out of R750. They only realised this when they went to inquire about the meter at the Ugu offices.
The man, who asked not to be named, said (like all the other victims) he had received a call from a man who had claimed he was an Ugu employee and he would fix his water meter for R2 000. The homeowner didn’t have enough money and the con man said he would accept R750.
“He gave me a receipt and promised to come back to fit the new meter.
“I only realised I had been ‘had’ when I took my receipt to Ugu and they said it was not theirs.”
Mirroring other incidents, the man said the con man seemed to have all his information about his Ugu water account and rates payments.
Port Shepstone and Margate police spokesmen said no one had opened any cases with them. They appealed to victims to report the cases and they would investigate.
Ugu repeated its warning:
“We wish to categorically state that at no point in time will legitimate employees of the municipality demand payments from our consumers for the water meter replacement,” said Ugu spokesman France Zama.
However, the municipality was currently undergoing a water meter replacement programme.
“It must also be noted that our water meters are situated mainly outside residential homes. In the case where a meter is inside the premises, the responsible contractor will attend to the meter, but may not solicit payment.”
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