How Byo man lost $26K to phone scammers

A Makokoba man was left distraught after $26 612,97 vanished from his account.

Sspected cyber criminals allegedly hacked his bank account by sending text messages instructing him to enter his pin which gave them access to his account.

Mzilikazi police received a report from Reuben Mpofu (54) of Makokoba, who said his CABS bank account had been hacked and cleaned of all the money, leaving only $3,30.

“Circumstances are that on October 2, the complainant’s CABS bank account was credited with a sum of $26 612,97 as his pension lump sum,” a police source said.

“On October 5 at around 12:16pm, the complainant received a short message service (SMS) on his Econet line purportedly to be from the Central Africa Building Society (CABS) Bank … The complainant had earlier ignored the first same message, which was sent at 12:13pm on the same day.”

The police source stated that soon after receiving the second message at 12:16pm, at exactly 12:17pm, Mpofu received an anonymous call asking him to respond to the short message service.

Mpofu then supplied the suspect with the code, 631220, which had been sent through SMS. The victim was thinking it was genuinely from CABS.

“At exactly 12:23pm, the complainant received a notification that a sum of $10 000 had been debited from his account. He then phoned the suspect’s phone number and he stated that he was fixing the account and promised that the money was to be credited back into complainant’s account,” the source said.

What followed was a series of messages signaling that $10 000 had been debited from his account. The suspect assured him that he was just fixing his account all would be well.

A series of deductions went on until the balance on the complainant’s bank balance was $3,20.

After numerous failed attempts to locate the suspect he then proceeded to the banking hall and the branch manager at CABS Bulawayo Jason Moyo Branch advised him that his money has been stolen and urged him to report the matter to the police.