PROVINCIAL COMMISSIONER WARNS PEOPLE ABOUT SCAM

PROVINCIAL COMMISSIONER WARNS PEOPLE ABOUT SCAM Staff Reporter Mpumalanga Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Thulani Ntobela warns the public about the growing trend of scams. The police are receiving numerous reports of individuals who continue to riddle job seekers and vulnerable people of their hard earned cash. They lure their pray by promising them jobs that will pay them lucrative salaries. These evil minded individuals will then request an upfront fee as compensation. Another scam is the one where people call businesses people them have never met. Leonard Hlathi said, “The callers will then pretend to be officials from government departments sent to allocate tenders. They will then inform the business people that they have won transport or catering tenders respectively which they did not previously contested for. “These barbaric thugs will then deposit a cheque that they know it has no money. For example, let’s say they shall have told you the false tender awarded to you is R40 000, what they do is, they will deposit an empty cheque of R70 000 into your account, then later they will call you and apologise and tell you that, the money deposited into your account was in actual fact intended to be deposited to another person who also won a tender.” Colonel Hlathi says a request then extended to you to deposit the difference back to a particular account. When you shall have done that, you will then wait according to the number of days allocated by the banks in order to clear deposited cheques, and you will be startled because the cheque cannot be transact hence it has no funds. Many scams are prevalent these days including the one that involves people who are standing on the bank queues, especially in ATMs observing members of the public who are withdrawing money. They will then go after a person who have withdrawn a huge amount of cash, then drop a money bag containing cash in front of that person. “The perpetrator will act as if he found the money and asked the person whether the money he found does not belong to him/her. Thereafter, he will act like a Good Samaritan and asked the person to accompany him to an awkward place where they can share the money because it does not belong to him either. Upon arrival to the place the person robbed of all his/her money withdrawn and other belongings.” Colonel Hlathi said. The Provincial Commissioner of Mpumalanga, Lieutenant-General Thulani Ntobela has expressed his concerns on this matter and requested urgent investigation by SAPS and a quick arrest of the perpetrator. “This regrettable and unacceptable behaviour robs the South African Police Service in Mpumalanga a good reputation and trust it has already built through hard work and dedication by our members, and cannot continue unchallenged. I am confident that with the type of dedication shown by our members, we will arrest the perpetrators soon. We however call upon all our community members and the victims to report this kind of behaviour in order to assist us with our investigations” said Lieutenant-General Thulani Ntobela.