The spokesperson of Diepkloof SAPS captain Phephi Matlou said many cases of theft have been reported to the police station by victims who mysteriously lost money while transacting using the Shoprite Money Transfer Service (SMTS) at Bara mall.
With the SMTS, Shoprite intends to make it easy for customers to send or receive money at any of the Shoprite stores across the country. Customers don’t need a bank account to use this service, and neither does the person you’re sending the money to, according to Shoprite’s check-line.
The ease in transferring money may be the reason why many people peculiarly get scammed, according to Matlou.
Matlou said, “It is not yet clear whether these scams stem from inside the Shoprite staff or not, but we urge people to never share their money market pin codes to anyone else except the person whose intended to receive the money.”
Chad Flandorp from Shoprite’s check-line said people must be educated about the pin code procedure they must follow when depositing and retrieving money using the (SMTS).
Flandorp said, “No insider culprit has been found inside the Shoprite staff so far because our system is able to trace who retrieves the money by the Identity document (ID) they produce and pin number  they use along with the M- number.”
The only person who gets the pin is the customer who visits the money market and the person the customer gives the pin code to, so it is still unclear as to who gives away people’s pin codes, according to Flandorp.
Criselda Maduwe uses the SMTS at Bara mall, on July 13 she said, “I have used the SMTS for more than four times and have had no problems.”
Maduwe said people should just be careful with their pin numbers and M- Numbers because there is no way another person could access any money from the SMTS without them.
Matlou said it is important for customers to keep their pin codes secret and only share them with their intended recipients until this matter is investigated and solved.
