{"id":774995,"date":"2024-06-04T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=774995"},"modified":"2024-06-04T09:08:08","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T07:08:08","slug":"scammers-have-a-new-target-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/774995\/scammers-have-a-new-target-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Scammers have a new target in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Insurance companies are being directly contacted by scammers via their call centres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Insurance Crime Bureau (ICB), fraudsters are impersonating policy holders and requesting copies of their policy schedules and claims history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This activity is not unusual, especially when consumers are looking around for better premiums. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This personal information in the wrong hands could help fraudsters with several other criminal acts, such as identity theft, fraudulent insurance claims, and financial scams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Policy schedules contain personal information, such as the name of the insured, their ID, residential address, policy details, and other confidential data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Charisse Ras, Santam\u2019s Group Chief Risk Officer, added that members of the public need to be extremely cautious when dealing with persons claiming to be representatives of insurance companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She said that the public can use the following tips to protect themselves against this type of fraud: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Stay vigilant<\/strong>: Be cautious when receiving requests for personal information, and always perform the necessary security checks to confirm you are actually speaking to a representative of an insurance company.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Verify authenticity<\/strong>: Before sharing any personal information, verify the identity of the requester.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Report suspicious activity:<\/strong>\u00a0If you suspect that you have been targeted by fraudsters or have inadvertently shared personal information with them, report the incident to your insurer and the appropriate authorities immediately.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/772233\/cheapest-car-insurance-showdown-naked-vs-pineapple-vs-discovery-vs-santam-vs-old-mutual-and-more\/\">Cheapest car insurance in South Africa: Naked vs Pineapple vs Discovery vs Santam vs Old Mutual and more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s largest short-term insurer is warning the public to act with caution when receiving phone calls from those claiming to be their insurance provider. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":716778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26,341],"class_list":["post-774995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline","tag-santam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774995"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":775160,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774995\/revisions\/775160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}