Cell C's boss did nothing

On Thursday morning, February 7 I made a few calls from my cellphone and then rushed off to Lanseria airport to collect a colleague.

On arrival at Lanseria I tried to send him an SMS to tell him where I was waiting but the SMS failed so I figured there was no signal, parked my car and walked to fetch him.

We were late for our meeting so we rushed off, had the meeting and came back to the office in less than an hour and I took him back to the airport.

On arriving home that evening I saw that my phone was still not working and took out the battery and SIM card, replaced it again and still no luck. The phone I am using a about three to four years old and real cheap one, so I thought it had now finally just given up and left it at that.

My husband then asked me on Friday morning if he should get me another “cheap” phone, so I said no it's fine, we could go sort it out on Saturday morning. 

On Friday night I was working and my son asked me to transfer some funds. Trying to go into my internet banking, I kept getting kicked off so I called the Absa Bank [JSE:ASA] call centre and they told me that my account had been blocked due to unauthorised transactions.

I was then told of amounts that went off on the seventh and asked if I had made these payments, which I hadn’t.

After that call I phoned Cell C straight away as I then knew that something else had happened with my phone and it was not just my phone not working, it was just too much of a coincidence. I explained to the agent what my phone was doing and she stated that my SIM card was damaged and I should come in to get a SIM card swap done.

At that stage I told her that my bank account had been hacked and that this was too much of a coincidence, and said I wanted to know what activity there had been on my cellphone account. After checking, she told me that a SIM card swap had been done on February 7.

I rushed off to the ATM to see what funds had been taken and there was about R90 000.00 taken. The next morning I went to my bank to open a case and then went to Cell C to do a SIM card swap and open a case with them. On enquiry at Cell C, I was told that the SIM card swap was done on the February 7 at 09h30.

After I had opened a case with the bank, they said that they would investigate and get back to me. After about a week I got a phone call to say that they had recovered R509.80 and that this had been put into my account, but that was all they could do.

They would take no responsibility as this is internet fraud and I must have been negligent with my PIN and passwords. At this stage I explained that I do not even share this with my husband! But that was pretty much it, as far as they were concerned the case was closed and over.

Cell C have also taken no responsibility and simply say that the perpetrators already had my details so the SIM card swap had nothing to do with this. The fact is that with the SIM card swap the perpetrators had full access to RVN numbers, could load beneficiaries and transfer funds with me having no knowledge at all as I did not receive any notifications and they had all the security PINs.

Should a SIM card swap not have been done, I would have received notifications of beneficiaries being loaded and I would have had the opportunity to stop the transactions. Cell C at this stage cannot provide any security documentation when this SIM card swap was done.

In order to do a SIM swap the client has to provide ID documentation and answer security questions. None of this was provided.

I have pursued this matter and went to a consumer journalist who had been asking the bank many questions and wanted proof of my so called “negligence”. Only at this stage did they get a forensic company to collect my computer (March 27 2013) and do a test on it.

The bank has come back to me since then and they have recovered some more of the money. Although I was not happy with the way the bank handled this to start with, they did eventually recover in the way they handled the situation and I am happy with their response now.

The forensics showed that I did go into a phishing site when trying to access a statement. This was the first time I tried to get a statement online and therefore did not know what to expect and added in details I should not have.

My argument here was that at no stage did I receive any communication on what to expect when they moved from posting statements to e-statements. It seems that some things have changed since this incident - I have noticed banners on their cellphone site and internet warning customers of fraud (which I had never seen before).

Also, their letter to customers has changed and they are doing forensic tests on computers now on all cases.

The biggest issue I have at this stage is with Cell C, they have spoken to me a few times after many emails and many phone calls and arguments. I even managed to get hold of Alan Knot-Craig, the CEO of Cell C, and he did nothing and also claimed no responsibility.

This is ridiculous as without that SIM card swap this amount of money would not have been taken! They are responsible for the actions of their staff and cannot simply push these matters aside and take no responsibility at all!

The other issue here is that I am tied into a contract with them, so even though I am a highly disgusted customer I cannot even close my account. This is what I would like to, when as a customer of many years they simply pass the buck; I find that hard to accept!

I will continue to fight this with Cell C, and can only hope that they will take some responsibility and pay back at least a portion of the loss. 

 - Fin24