Good hearts: be careful! 

Thabazimbi – National Crime Assist head Ben Almero has uncovered cases where scammers are serving a life sentence in a South African prison. The scammers target the agricultural community, known for their generous hearts, and phones an unsuspecting person to ask for help.

 
The attention to detail can be very convincing. Imagine a well-spoken, polite Afrikaans male phoning you ‘accidently’ and saying that he only had enough money for this one call. His truck had broken down just outside of town and he needs airtime to make all the necessary arrangements. Please could you send him some airtime or even pay for the damaged tyres?

This is exactly what happened to the owner of Thaba Tyres. He received a call from a man who said that his truck broke down. The man spoke Afrikaans and asked him to just send him a large amount of airtime, because he is far from town and urgently needs to call people. He then asked him to help to get tyres on his truck. The owner arranged with another company closer to where the truck broke down to drive out and assist and made the payment for the tyres. When the other company arrived at the scene there was no truck... It was a scam.

Another creative story spun to an old age home was that the cold room had broken down and the meat needed to be donated somewhere but airtime was needed to make this possible.

 
Almero says that it is unbelievable how many good people are being scammed and warns that cyber crime is on the increase as this is a quick and easy way to make money or pass the time.