More Scam Prevention Advice from a Junk Mail user

We have received another report from a Junk Mail user who has been scammed recently. Sadly this user (Duwayne) lost R9,000 in this fake vehicle scam, but he has some useful scam prevention advice to offer fellow classifieds users.

27 HUDSONDuwayne responded on an advert for a 1927 Hudson Phaeton that was placed by an “advertiser” from Richard’s Bay in Kwazulu Natal. The “seller” claimed that the car was not running and the selling price was indicated as R9,000.

After much conversation with the “advertiser” Duwayne (who lives in Cape Town) thought that this deal might be too good to be true but that the chances of the advert being a scam was minimal, so he deposited R9,000 into the account that the “seller” gave him. (Just a note: one of the photos that he received from the scammer are featured on the right of this paragraph.)

The “advertiser” claimed that his name was Mark Ben Hart. The cell number he used to advertise was 072 7392319 and the e-mail address he used to correspond was chart302@yahoo.com. The ABSA account number that he gave Duwayne was 9286221081, the ID Number he gave him was 8008275534087 and the address he gave him was 15 Segar Road, Fairview, Empangeni. After further investigation it came to light that the ID number, name and address that the “advertiser” gave were fake. Because of this ABSA has locked the account.

This “advertiser” was pretty sleek. Duwayne asked some of his family members to give him a call before he paid him and he confirmed that he was keeping the vehicle for him. Even after he lost the money he was still claiming that he’s sold the vehicle and holding it. He was still claiming that the transporter was collecting the car the next day. This scammer has since switched off his phone and is not answering any calls. Duwayne has reported the matter to the SAPS.

Duwayne doesn’t want other people to get caught. He’s urging classifieds users to be careful, listen to their gut and not to make payment unless the advertiser gives them ALL the information that they require. It doesn’t matter how urgently the person wants to sell the car. Users SHOULD ask questions like “I need to be sure that this is NOT a scam, can you send me some more pics?” If the seller replies with a response similar to “3 people have asked me that, what the hell do you want, a pic of todays news paper on the bonnet?” your reply should be a resounding “YES!”.  If they are rude and abrupt with your requests, think twice before you pay ANY money into their account.

Duwayne also says that he wanted to pay money into his ABSA account over the counter (inside the bank) so the money reflects immediately on his side. The “advertiser” insisted on EFT, so he made the deposit into his wife’s ABSA account and made the transfer from there. He realized that if you do an EFT via Internet Banking it doesn’t matter who the beneficiary is, the payment will go through if the account number is correct.  If he had made the deposit over the counter, the teller would have not processed the payment because the beneficiary name should match the account number. That way he would have known who the account holder is.

There you have it! More scam prevention advice from a Junk Mail user. Follow these guidelines and the other guidelines in our Safety & Security blog posts to find out more about the scams that are out there.

If you do encounter any form of fraudulent activity on the Junk Mail website, please inform the Junk Mail Customer Care Department via ccc@junkmail.co.za or telephonically on 012-3423840 x2295 (during office hours).

Henno Kruger

Digital Marketing Campaign Coordinator at Junk Mail Publishing.

You may also like...

4 Responses

  1. Annelize says:

    Please post these scam numbers on one of these sites for others to find…

    http://whocallsme.com
    http://www.whycall.me
    http://800notes.com

    Always a good idea to search the numbers on the ads first!

  2. faith says:

    Love the advise. Squeaky clean writing also

  3. Basil Kirby says:

    Hi i was stupid as well i put in that i was looking for a car a reliant scimitar gte v6 and a man Gert with is Ph No 0764718797 and women Johanna No 0626018744 said they had one and sent Pics 13 of them from white river mpumalanga with a farm address and they own a earth moving and they we transporting to cape town and coming past plettenberg bay and drop the car of today 6 april 2017 so and the car is R9000 but put R2500 in Nedbank Imaliaand give the rest to
    the driver and i did been stupid afterwardsknew i had been caught when i looked at the Pics
    the way the number plate had been blanked out, so to me please advice the people to be very observant of small little facts like that , but i should of read your warning first ,but will not happen again as i will go and find the car first .
    well you people very much for the help you can give. Basil

  4. Basil Kirby says:

    they seem to act on here very fast as i put the ad in the night before 4-5-17 and reply 7.oclock the next morning 5-5 -17

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

19 − 17 =