Beware the SIM swap scam

Vodacom has reported that fraudsters are posing as cellphone company representatives and tricking unsuspecting customers who end up being victims of internet banking fraud.

SIM swap fraud is a technique used by fraudsters to defraud unsuspecting internet banking users. Once they have acquired the victim’s banking details and other personal information through phishing scams, the fraudsters then call the network operator posing as the customer and requests a SIM swap. This will cancel the customer’s SIM connection and the fraudsters will have access to the customer’s cellphone line. This will enable the fraudsters to receive the customer’s one time internet banking password allowing them to perform fraudulent internet banking transactions.

In order to protect customers from SIM swap fraud, Vodacom notifies customers via SMS whenever a SIM swap attempt is made. Customers who receive the SMS but have not requested a SIM swap should alert Vodacom about the fraudulent SIM swap request by calling Vodacom’s customer care on 082 111. Fraudsters have resorted to calling customers to try to either convince them to switch off their phones for an extended period of time or try and convince them to ignore the SMS from the network operator.

‚We’ll never call our customers and ask them to switch off their cellphones unless they have requested assistance with a handset related issue that requires their cellphones to be switched off. So if they’ve not logged a fault with us, they should be suspicious of any requests to switch off their cellphone,‚ says Johan Van Graan, Chief Risk Officer at Vodacom.

Van Graan added ‚ ‚If a customer receives an SMS notification indicating that they have requested a SIM swap, they should ignore any further communication and immediately contact Vodacom and we’ll take the necessary steps to protect them.‚

Vodacom customers can contact Customer Care on 111 free from their Vodacom cellphones or 082 111 from any other phone for assistance.

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