'Check to see if social grant card is valid' is a scam, says Sassa

People claiming to be employees at the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) are skimming social grant cards and stealing the money from the poor.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sassa says its social grant programmes have been hit by different kinds of scammers. Recently, the agency has been alerted to a new modus operandi used to scam and defraud social grant beneficiaries.

The scammers claim to be Sassa employees and move around in communities with skimming devices.

“The fraudsters approach beneficiaries and convince them to ‘check’ if their social grant cards are still valid by swiping them through a device. By doing so, the scammers are skimming the beneficiaries’ cards for cloning later.

“This gives the scammers time to load a beneficiary's information onto a new card and withdraw all the money.”

Sassa CEO Totsie Memela cautioned social grant clients: “A report has found the scammers follow beneficiaries who have recently been paid, especially in the Eastern Cape, North West and KwaZulu-Natal.”

“We do not know if they also ask the beneficiaries to enter their card PIN. Beneficiaries are advised to always keep their social grant payment card PIN safe and to themselves,” Memela said.

Sassa warned social grant beneficiaries to be alert and not to co-operate with anybody who requests their cards in the street or at home for whatever reason, asking the public to immediately report these incidents to the police or Sassa.

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