With the festive season approaching and scams set to peak, South African actress and entrepreneur, Shashi Naidoo, cautioned her Instagram followers to be careful when handling their phones in public and to immediately notify their banks if their phone gets stolen.
Naidoo, who now resides in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, took to the social media platform to share her horrific ordeal after her phone’s security measures were bypassed and her bank accounts were cleaned out, including racking up a R500 000 bill on her credit card.
“SCAM alert. Please be safe out there. So I had a bit of a nightmare in South Africa that’s turning into a horror story that I kind of wanted to share with you guys.
“On Wednesday, I was MC-ing an event and as I got out of my Uber, and got into the parking lot, someone ran up to me, grabbed my phone and that is what I thought it was the end of it,” revealed the media personality.
Naidoo revealed that following the incident, she continued with the business event and conducted a SIM swap the following day. However, it was too late.
“The next day, which is Friday, I was flying back to Dubai and my manager calls me and she says to me she is having a problem paying staff salaries.
“So I thought OK, maybe with the SIM swap it affected the banking apps, so I’ll just pop into ABSA at the airport. So I check in, go into ABSA, get a hold of all my apps and they have cleared out my savings accounts,” said Naidoo.
She added that the thieves cleared spent R500 000 on her credit card and withdrew all the money from her access bond.
“I literally had a heart attack and then just as soon as I saw that, I also ran to FNB and they did the same on FNB and I just recently sold my house so all that money was sitting in my savings.
“If your phone does get stolen, just phone your bank immediately and alert them,” urged a teary-eyed Naidoo.
In a separate post, Naidoo told followers that she has been in contact with investigative authorities on her case.
“Yesterday, I was just focused on getting everything I could possibly get together to help the forensics team to ascertain how the fraud happened and we move.
“I’m also going to be focusing a lot more on my work because I don’t think I’ve been this broke since I was a student. Very humbling,” she said.