A colleague is going through a really scary thing at the moment. In fact, if it were me, I’m would be in the loony bin by now… that would be the last straw.
On Monday he got an SMS from Vodacom to say that he’d upgraded his mobile contract. That was a surprise to him, so he phoned Vodacom to find out more about, only to discover that he’d apparently upgraded his contract in Cape Town (he was in JHB the entire time) over the weekend and got a new phone and a R1000 voucher!
Anyhoo, to cut a long story short, it seems that someone in Cape Town presented his ID book, and got the phone and voucher and upgraded his contract to a Talk 1000!! Scary shit!
Then he decided to phone a few of the companies that he had accounts with. He discovered half an hour later after talking to Truworths, that he’d apparently opened an account at Identity on Saturday in Cape Town, and spent R2000 on the account. Same scenario… someone presented his ID and an account was opened.
It turns out that someone has an ID book with his details in it, with a different issue date and photo… in Cape Town… and that person has merrily opened accounts in his name!!
What a mission! This poor guy! He’s had to get affidavits etc to the companies to get this sorted out… which it still hasn’t been. Poor dude is living through his worst nightmare. How do you get these people to stop? If you get your ID listed as suspect, do they use the issue date too? Thankfully he now has a copy of the ID they’re using, Identity sent him a copy of it. If you do get it marked, can you get a new ID from home Affairs? If so, you’d have to prove who you are… he doesn’t have a birth certificate anymore!! It just gets worse, when you think of the ramifications of this.
It’s completely freaked me out too. Hope this never ever happens to me!
Comments
phillygirl
OMG. That is frightening!
Janet B
Oh no! That is horrendous and very scary!!
Shayne
I don’t know if you ever saw that movie with Sandra Bullock – the one where someone stole her complete identity. At the time I thought it was impossible to do – but it just shows that obviously it’s quite a simple thing.
Poor chap. Hope he’s ok.
Lindy
How scary- I hope he gets it all sorted out soon!
Marylin
Oh that is a scary thought. :S
angel
Holy crap thats dreadful!
Mike Malan
So now you may ask, what the hell is Mike doing on my blog ?? I was reading sarah’s and followed a link to see how you ere
I can add a lot to this poor guy’s dilemma.
PS I am in Kigali, Rwanda at the moment.
About your dear terrified colleague
Tell him to look up http://www.safps.org.za. He needs to register himself (with police affidavits, etc) as being impersonated. SAFPS is South Africa’s fraud prevention service (one of them anyway – but probably the largest).
He should also ask Truworths for the details of their Forensic manager or credit manager in CT and report himslef on the I2 shared fraud forum user group (second largest) as a victim of ID theft fraud.
Once registered on tehse databases the fraudster will move on to using a new ID number of some other poor victim.
He also needs to contact the credit bureaus Experian, Trans Union and Compuscan to get copies of his credit reports and make corrections where possible. At compuscan (+27 21 888 6000) He can speak to Lauren Wepener for advice. She might have details for the other bureaus
Yes he can get a new ID. The number will in all likelihood stay the same, but in extreme cases even that can change. He has to apply through pretoria under the project called Lokiso Ditokomane. In sept 2005 I followed this project closely when home affairs allowed people to change ID numbers at large. Not too sure what the process is nowadays but is is possible to get a new number. Se ethe link to an article I published on it way back when http://www.experian-da.com/Web/News/Newsletters/e-news-SAfrica_05-09.pdf (See teh section on Fraud Focus)
Mike Malan
Cioa for now, please fix the spelling typos
Regards to lance and your boys
tell sue and Fiona I say hi, and anyone else who knows me