Scam warning for South Africans

South Africans should be wary that fraudsters targeting their salaries and pensions have become better at impersonating major institutions.

According to a Sunday Times report, scammers have increasingly masqueraded as prominent entities like the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).

The FSCA told the publication there was an increase in Financial Sector Regulation Act investigations due to the criminals impersonating the FSCA, its leaders, and employees.

The FSCA had finalised ten investigations into this violation, with three more ongoing and 11 new cases being initiated.

It has also seen an increase in the unlawful impersonation of authorised financial services providers by people unlawfully soliciting investments from the public.

The authority has ramped up its public awareness campaign about online scams in the past year, with more than double the number of warnings issued in its 2023/2024 financial year than in 2022/2023.

“These warnings mainly related to unregistered financial services, social media-based scams and impersonations,” the FSCA said.

The Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (Asisa) has advised that reputable and regulated financial services providers would not sell policies or investments via WhatsApp, Telegram, email, or unsolicited phone calls.

Asisa standing committee convenor Jean van Niekerk explained that the scammers would use the logos of well-known regulated companies and regularly set up fake profiles for their executives.

“When you are desperate, and you see the CEO of a big financial services company promise huge investment returns, validated by fake testimonials, it is easy to throw caution to the wind and click on a link or make an investment,” Van Niekerk warned.

Ninety-One COO Khadeeja Bassier said that deepfake artificial intelligence (AI) technology has also made it easier for scammers to convince major organisations that they are investors.

“Essentially, content verification systems are becoming easier to impersonate, and therefore vigilance must be heightened,” Bassier said.

Bassier explained that this had led to enhanced security and verification controls that could frustrate investors themselves.

“There is, therefore, a very careful tightrope to be walked between end-investor experience and fraud prevention,” Bassier said.

Surge in Sars scams

Sars has regularly sent out notices of tax-related scams carried out under its name over the past few months.

Most recently, it warned taxpayers of a new scam based on its auto assessment practice, which it started in the past few years.

In this instance, scammers contact taxpayers while pretending to be from Sars, typically via an email using a Sars letterhead.

The scammers direct taxpayers to log in to eFiling to complete their auto-assessment.

However, instead, they are sent to a fake duplicate website, which captures their login and other personal information.

In certain cases, the scammer might even produce a fake proof of payment.

Another tax-based scam sees fraudsters sending taxpayers an “Outstanding Tax Payment” notice via email, also using a Sars letterhead and similar styling elements.

Sars has advised taxpayers that it never provides bank account numbers in its correspondence.

All legitimate tax information and communication will only be accessible on the official eFiling platform and Sars mobile apps.

Users can also click on the email address from which they received the notification to check if it is spoofed and might be coming from a source other than Sars.

Fraudsters typically use the following formats to try and convince taxpayers that the request is coming from a Sars official:

• Mentioning SARS or Tax somewhere in the address;
• Coming from a .gov.za address tied to a government department (like the DTIC or DMRE, etc);
• Addresses that have ‘refund’ or ‘customer care’ or ‘legal’ as part of the name;
• Addresses that are completely unrelated to SARS, coming from purported tax practitioners or lawyers on behalf of SARS.