DEAR Editor,-
At 11am on Tuesday, August 13, I went to the Standard Bank ATMs at the Harbour View, Port Shepstone branch of Standard Bank. I selected the left-most machine for my transaction, which was being used by a black man who appeared to be having some trouble. After a few moments he left the ATM with papers in his hand and his attention apparently on them. The man was in his mid-20’s, dressed in a white shirt and light-coloured longs.
I stepped up to the ATM and tried to insert my debit card into the slot, but it would not go in. At this point, a black woman who appeared to be waiting ahead of me (for a free machine?), and to whom I had offered my place at the ATM, placed herself between me and the keyboard and, without saying anything proceeded to ‘assist’ me.
She removed a piece of paper from the slot where transaction slips are issued and then pressed the button for ‘do you want more time?’ The screen then displayed an Afrikaans message to the effect that cash was available in a cardless transaction. The heading, which was otherwise blank, requested that I enter my PIN number, in English.
The woman had departed behind me and, in fact, left the immediate vicinity. This woman was slightly shorter than average height, about 28-32 years old; average brown complexion. There was nothing outstanding about her clothes.
Being somewhat bewildered by all this I entered my PIN, when the screen went blank with no prompts at all. I pressed several buttons in an effort to raise the menu for removal of my card, to no avail.
I immediately went into the bank, and there being no queue I was attended to immediately by Ms Prafashnee Govender. A statement of my account reflected that an amount of R840 had been withdrawn from the account at 11.09am of the same day. There was only about R600 left in my account, so the perpetrators had done a balance enquiry and withdrawn everything, including my overdraft allowance.
Ms Govender assisted me (with much delay due to the extremely slow response by the fraud division) in contacting the Standard Bank’s Fraud Division. We spoke to Lauren, who issued a reference number. Ms Govender had already cancelled my debit card and issued another. She also recommended that my wife’s credit card (linked to my cheque account) be cancelled and this was done.
Besides the loss and inconvenience which we have had to endure, the alarming part of this has been the length of time taken for the fraud division’s line to be answered on August 13, and the subsequent difficulty I have had in contacting them using three separate numbers.
I am writing this statement on Sunday, August 18, and have so far recieved no call from Standard Bank’s investigators or any other bank representative. Please note: There was no security person obvious in the area.
PC MARSHALL
Port Shepstone
