ALI MPHAKI
A“MYSTERIOUS” company has deducted over R300 000 from City of Joburg employees’ bank accounts without their knowledge.
Close to 6 000 council workers were shocked last month to find their accounts had been debited for R65 by a collecting agency company called Stratcal. Those targeted were workers who receive their salaries from Absa and Nedbank.
Stratcal CEO Hennie Heymans confirmed the incident yesterday, but blamed it on a client company called Warranty Tech, which he accused of fraudulently running an electronic file on its system to obtain the banking details of City of Joburg employees.
“Luckily, our systems picked it up before the money could be transferred to the company,” said Heymans, adding they had laid charges of fraud against Warranty Tech at Villiera police station in Pretoria.
Though unable to explain how the alleged scam was pulled off, Heymans said he could only guess that Warranty Tech had worked with someone who helped them with employees’ banking details.
A quick check by The Star with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission has found that Warranty Tech is registered, but attempts to get comment from its single member, Loyiso Bingo Makhamba, were unsuccessful.
Heymans said he did not have their contact details and that they had since found out that the company was not registered.
Angry employees told The Star that when they approached the City of Joburg to find out about the deducted R65, were told to “sort it out” with their respective banks.
City of Joburg senior HR manager Derrick Bryle
said: “The matter involves external companies and has nothing to do with the city.”
This is despite council spokesman Gabu Tugwana advising affected employees to contact the city’s finance department or report the matter to the police. “No one is allowed to tamper with your banking account without your permission. It becomes a police matter.”
Nedbank’s client service executive, Gail Bates, said she could not comment and would prefer to speak to individual account holders.
Absa said if money was withdrawn fraudulently from an account and the customer had adhered to security and safety standards, the bank was in a position to dispute the debit and refund the customer.
“A debit order facility is available to a user who receives regular payments of large volumes of transactions. The payments (are made as a result of) an instruction between the user and their client, and the bank is not involved in the individual transaction. Absa investigated this matter when we received a first customer query and have identified two entities that will now be the (subject) of an SAPS investigation.”
However, the debit orders will be reversed and staff will get back their R65. But what has incensed is that they are to pay the bank fees for the reversal of the debit orders.
Employee Masechaba Serame said: “Whichever way you look at it, we the consumers are the losers. First our money was deducted without our consent, and at the end we have to pay bank fees for the reversal of that transaction. I will be approaching the Consumer Council about the matter. It is not fair.”
Another employee, Themba Mavimbela, said he had approached Absa about the matter and they promised to stop the firm from accessing his account.
“The amount of R65 is so minuscule that I suspect the fraudsters thought we would not notice it. The city has about 30 000 employees and we seriously suspect someone was planning on making a huge kill with this scam,” he said.
Heymans said very little, if any, interest accrued from the money.