Hazel is happy. In last week’s column, I told the story of Hazel Lumsden, who held Vodacom liable for enabling a fraudster to raid her bank account five months ago.
Somehow the fraudster had managed to get into her account, but in order to add themselves as a beneficiary and move her funds into their account, they needed a one-time-pin, sent to her by her bank via SMS. To get their hands on that crucial set of numbers, they did a fraudulent SIM swap on her cell number.
As a security measure, Vodacom sends the registered owner of a SIM a notification, also via SMS, asking them to raise the alarm if the SIM swap request was not made by them.
They have two hours in which to do this, and if they don’t respond, the SIM swap is processed. Vodacom says that’s because more than 99% of SIM swaps are legitimate and they don’t want to inconvenience people who need new SIMs after losing or having their phones stolen.
But I, for one, would far prefer to be inconvenienced by having to go into a store than have my bank accounts cleaned out.
I’ve taken up a few cases in which the victim failed to respond within two hours, with the result that the fraudulent SIM swap was processed, allowing the fraudster to empty their account.
But Lumsden did respond to that SMS SIM swap notification sent by Vodacom that morning in May — within just 12 minutes of it landing. And still the fraudulent SIM swap went ahead. Asked why, Vodacom told me it had yet to finalise its investigation into the case.
Efforts to more efficiently investigate and finalise fraudulent contract cases would be a huge help
Well, that’s since happened, and I’ve been informed that the case had been “resolved amicably” — corporate speak for a big, fat, verbal, and financial, sorry.
“While it is regrettable that it took as long as it did to resolve, rest assured that we have taken corrective action, including the implementation of certain remedies dealing with these sort of complex cases,” Vodacom told me.
“It wouldn’t be prudent to detail what these are as it may provide the likes of highly sophisticated criminal syndicates with information that could assist in perpetrating fraudulent activity.”
Staying with cellphone-related fraud, another fairly prolific variation involves identity theft. Thanks to several major data breaches, our personal data is easily available to criminals, many of whom use it to take out high-end cellphone contracts in their victims’ names.
It happened to Jenna Wilson of Cape Town early in 2022, shortly after Transunion had informed her that her data had been compromised in a massive breach.
She wrote to me last month, having still not managed to get MTN to conclude its fraud investigation into her case, meaning she was being hounded by debt collectors and had been “blacklisted” for it.
“I am not an MTN customer, but in early 2022 about R11,000 was debited from my account by MTN without my authorisation,” she began. “This account was obviously fraudulently opened using my details so I instructed my bank to block MTN from taking unauthorised funds from my bank account."
But dealing with MTN without being able to provide an MTN number has proved to be a major challenge for Wilson.
“There is no option to report fraud via their customer care call centre if you are not currently an MTN customer,” she said.
Well, technically she was an MTN customer, thanks to the fraudster, but she didn’t have access to a number — only the crook had that.
“I finally tracked down a human being to report my issue to via MTN’s Facebook page and was asked to supply an affidavit and supporting documentation confirming the fraud, which I did, initially in May 2022.”
But 18 months on, she’d yet to get that “investigation complete” e-mail, and that blacklisting remained on her credit record.
“I am beyond frustrated with this process,” Wilson said.
When she took to Facebook recently to vent about her experience, two of her friends commented that they were going through the same thing with MTN, she said.
So I took up her case with MTN, asking three questions: what is the status of Wilson’s fraud investigation and why has it taken so long to resolve; how do fraud victims who aren’t legitimate MTN subscribers report such fraud to MTN; and how many such cases are currently under investigation?
We always introduce measures to mitigate these criminal activities but the syndicates always find new ways of defrauding our customers. We are increasing our efforts to deliver greater levels of cyber security, protection and awareness for all
Corporate affairs officer Jacqui O’Sullivan confirmed that the fraudulent contract was taken out in March 2022 but had now been closed and Wilson’s credit record status has been updated.
As for why it took so long, O’Sullivan said Wilson initially submitted a certified copy of only one side of her ID card.
“She was asked to submit a copy that shows both sides of the card but she never did, hence the delay in resolving.”
Not so, Wilson told me. “After I submitted my documents, it took them four to five months to get back to me to say that they needed both sides of my ID card — all I was told when I chased up during that time was that my case was being investigated.”
It took her a while, she says, but she finally got a scan of both sides of her ID card certified and on July 12 she e-mailed the document to fraudhelp@mtn.com. She got no response, despite sending a follow-up e-mail.
That, incidentally, is the address O’Sullivan advises fraud victims to use to report their cases. Or call 083-123-4357(HELP).
Fraud Specialists are available to assist customers from 7am until 10pm, seven days a week, O’Sullivan said.
She wouldn’t say how many such cases are currently under investigation. “This information is confidential,” she said.
“We always introduce measures to mitigate these criminal activities but the syndicates always find new ways of defrauding our customers.
“We are increasing our efforts to deliver greater levels of cyber security, protection and awareness for all.”
Efforts to more efficiently investigate and finalise fraudulent contract cases would be a huge help.
• Contact Knowler for advice with your consumer issues via e-mail consumer@knowler.co.za or on X (Twitter) @wendyknowler
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