My Savings Wiped Out!

A Joburg woman lost R40 000 in an illegal SIM swop. Her bank say it was her fault and her cellphone provider won’t help.

- Jacques Myburgh

IT’S AN issue that’s caused her months of frustration, heartache and sleepless nights. More than anything Sue Steyn would like to understand how more than R40 000 could just vanish from her bank account. Her precious savings, all gone.

But every time she goes in search of answers it feels as if she’s walking into a brick wall.

All the evidence suggests that the accountant from Johannesburg was a victim of a dreaded SIM swop but every time she’s tried approaching her bank and her cellphone provider they’ve just passed the buck or fobbed her off with excuses.

The matter has dragged on for months but recently an email arrived in her inbox that made her even more determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. The email wasn’t meant for her eyes and had been sent to her by accident. It was a report from one of Vodacom’s investigators and seemed to suggest an agent working for the cellphone network had been caught helping criminals perform illegal SIM swops.

In the email the Vodacom investigator writes, “We’ve established that the agent’s logins (agent Mandla*) were stolen and used by another fusion agent, Lebo*, who’s also confessed this to his HR and line manager. I’ve also linked this Lebo to a syndicate operating from JHB [Johannesburg] Prison and one of our previous suspects who was convicted for fraud SIM swop was the person Lebo was colluding with.”

YOU has seen the email, dated 13 October 2016, which was mistakenly sent to Sue. After receiving it her lawyer confronted Vodacom demanding answers.

In response Coenie du Toit, Vodacom’s managing executive of legal affairs, wrote that the report from the communications giant’s internal investigation had been sent to Sue by accident. But he insisted this doesn’t mean Vodacom is liable for her loss.