Woman sees all the red flags after scammer lies about sending her R19 500 ‘by mistake’

The owner of a food business Kgomotso Ndwandwe survives a scam attempt. Image supplied by Kgomotso

• Kgomotso Ndwandwe almost became a scam victim, but luckily she was alert.
• The scammer faked a bank deposit of R19 500 only to ask for R3 000 back.
• The red flags were too obvious and she saw right through him.

Kgomotso Ndwandwe was on high alert when a scammer tried his luck. The young woman is the owner of a food business. She received a text message from a ‘construction company’ requesting a quote for 50 meals.

“I sent him a quote, but he wanted it via WhatsApp, not email, and he didn’t want to share his email address,” Kgomotso says. 

It was only the beginning of more red flags to come. As per a client’s request, she sent him the quote. He called her to say he was happy with it and would send the deposit and proof of payment. 

Kgomotso received a text message from ‘AbsaSouthAfrica’. The bogus client sent an extra R10 000- another red flag.

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“Then he calls me saying he sent extra money and asks that I e-wallet R3 000, so he can pay others suppliers while I wait for the money to reflect,” she says.

At this point, Kgomotso caught on and was not about to be a scam victim. She tells W24 that she has experienced something similar where someone said they were sending me an e-wallet. “I later realised that they copied and pasted an old e-wallet message.” 

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She warns that people have to be on high alert and not ignore red flags. This wasn’t the smartest scammer, but unfortunately, you can easily cave in as many other people have to such scams when you are not alert.

“He refused to send me his business email address when I was asking for invoicing details. He didn’t have any of those and said I should just send the quote via WhatsApp. After supposedly “sending” me the money, he immediately called me to ask me to send him back R3000 via e-wallet to send to his other suppliers while I waited for it to reflect,” she recalls.

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Sending an extra R10 000 was supposed to soften her up but it didn’t.

“He refused to give me banking details. He sounded desperate on the phone call and always switched off when I mentioned that he must wait for the money to reflect. He also asked me to borrow money from people, which was another big red flag,” Kgomotso adds.  

So many people get scammed every day. It is satisfying to see that not all scam attempts are successful.

Have you ever been scammed?  Let us know here.

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