29/07/2024
1. On 11/4/2024 I received a text message from what was purported to be Standard Bank, notifying me of the identification of fraudulent activity on her bank account
2. Immediately following the SMS received in point 5, another SMS was received from the same sender, purporting to be Standard Bank, indicating that the fraudulent transaction was successfully reversed (R5,500.00)
3. Immediately following the SMS noted in point 6, I received a call from an unknown woman introducing herself as ‘Melissa’ purporting to be from Standard Bank Fraud Division
4. In this call, I was informed that her banking profile had been “hacked” and urgent action was required.
5. The unknown woman [‘Melissa’] indicated to me that she does not need me to provide any of my personal details, as these were all available to her on the screen in front of her
6. The unknown caller [‘Melissa’] proceeded to tell me that she could see all my accounts, and account balances (the unknown woman caller [‘Melissa’] read these details out to me! along with my telephone number and email address and noted that she should transfer funds from my Money Market account to my cheque account and then onwards to a secure “Standard Bank Fraud Holding Account” in order to protect the funds from being stolen.
7. I was then requested to create said holding account in my own name!
8. I then created the account in question whilst on the call with unknown caller [‘Melissa’]
9. Two transfers were then initiated from my Money Market account
10. Unknown caller understood that for the fraud to be committed, funds had to move from the Money Market account to the Cheque account, and then to a 3rd party account. This clearly indicates the unknown caller [‘Melissa’] had unlawful access to all my details
11. After this transfer was initiated, Standard Bank’s Fraud Department contacted me (whilst I was still on the call with unknown caller [‘Melissa’] - when I informed the Fraud Department that she was already on the call with said department, it became clear that the unknown caller [‘Melissa’] was scamming me the past 1 hr 20 min.. Then the unknown caller [‘Melissa’] hung up the call, at which point I immediately notified Standard Bank of the fraud.
12. I immediately opened a police complaint on same evening: 11/4/2024 .
13. Following the opening of police case, I opened a fraud case with Standard Bank on 12/4/2024
14. After numerous back-to-back discussions with Standard Bank, Standard Bank refunded only R154,449.80 to me, which leaves R95,555.20, and is still unrecovered. The matter is currently with the Ombudsman.
15. Employees [TWO PRIVATE BANKERS] of Standard Bank Menlyn, maintain to me that this fraudulent activity could only have been committed by a current or previous employee of Standard Bank, as the information provided to me by unknown caller [‘Melissa’] is only available to Standard Bank.
16. It is peculiar that despite the circumstances for both transactions (theft) being identical, AND AT THE SAME TIME, the bank has chosen to only partially return my stolen funds.
17. Standard Bank has indicated that this case is now closed, and any further actions can be taken up with the Ombud.
18. Standard Bank has not provided any further information on the matter - it is not ‘obliged’ to give me a summary of losses and return of a portion of the funds!
19. It is clear that I was not grossly negligent, given the sequence of events that gave me good cause to assume the caller was indeed from Standard Bank. Who knows all the details of every account, the balance of that account and the name of the account holders, except someone from the bank!
20. The courts will always look at each case individually to determine how clever the phishing attempt was and how realistic the fake call, and text message and/or website was. If these are very convincing and hardly distinguishable from reality, there is a real chance that the court will rule that there was no gross negligence and that the bank will be obliged to refund the stolen amounts.
IF YOU OR ANYONE YOU KNOW HAS BEEN THE VICTIM TO STANDARD BANK FRAUD, PLEASE REPLY TO ME. MY NEXT STEP IS THREE RADIO STATIONS, HELLOPETER.COM AND TWO NEWS PAPERS WILLING TO PRINT MY DILEMMA.
