Rogue Direct Debits

How would you feel if you discovered a ‘company’ you’ve never heard of, have been debiting your account for months? The amount most likely will be just below the minimum you’ve asked your bank to sms notify you of. But one day, you decide to check your account, and someone has slowly been stealing from you!

Only ZAR99 per month, not much you think, approximately USD7, BUT here in SA the figures quoted by our debit order regulating body, PASA, is quite horrendous! With over 600 000 disputed debit orders per month in 2016, quite a tidy sum of our hard-earned money goes to fraudsters every month! One person I know of, lost just over ZAR17 000 over a period!
The fraudsters claim that these debits were as a result of a successful tele-sales call, and unbelievably that alone has been regarded as a legal mandate to deduct money from our accounts here for many years! This is only now being changed, but the implementation is very slow.

This system is full of loopholes; the tele-sales calls are supposed to be recorded and provided to the debit order processing companies together with their instruction providing the person’s details (identity number and banking details). This is done without the person whose bank account is being debited being contacted, nor any signature provided!

I was the victim of this scam a couple of years ago, and when I received the so-called recording of the tele-sale, (with great difficulty), it was not even my voice. In desperation, the fraudsters made up a call with a fake person pretending to be me after I contacted all parties involved as well as our debit order regulating body! They advised that they were investigating a fraud syndicate operating from Durban, and asked me to lay a fraud charge at my police station as a case number would assist them. This again proved difficult, as the police felt I suffered no loss as my money was returned by my bank through a debit reversal!

How do these fraudsters get hold of our details?
It turns out that dishonest employees of companies we have legal debit orders with, simply download payment lists with all our details on – names, ID No, bank account number; and sell that information. So-called ‘tele-sales companies’ are formed, and they then instruct debit order processing companies to debit our accounts.

Where are these lists being sold?
Our local television station investigated this (as many other consumer journalists for radio and newsprint did) but SABC3 managed to catch one of the scam artists red-handed when they discovered that they could buy a list on the street, right here in my home town of Durban!
Our personal data is being sold time and time again to fraudsters because of greed by crooked employees!

When our Reserve Bank allowed a tele-sale as a legal debit order instruction all those years ago, they in fact opened up our accounts to fraudsters!
Following a further three illegal debits from different ‘companies’ over a period, I eventually changed my bank account.
Unbelievable that our money is not safe in the banks here, but sadly true! Wonder if this kind of fraud happens elsewhere in the world?

Some related links on this issue:
Wendy Knowler – Consumer journalist
http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/consumer/check-your-statements-1697043

SABC3 Special Assignment
https://m.facebook.com/156167284433598/photos/a.177762552274071.54892.156167284433598/1021543854562599/?type=3&comment_id=1024695280914123&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R1%22%7D

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