{"id":853201,"date":"2026-03-07T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=853201"},"modified":"2026-06-09T09:29:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:29:37","slug":"whatsapp-warning-for-people-living-in-cape-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/cloud-hosting\/853201\/whatsapp-warning-for-people-living-in-cape-town\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp warning for people living in Cape Town"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The City of Cape Town has warned customers to be on the lookout for scams, as criminals are focusing on the city’s electricity services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city’s Energy and Finance Directorates were alerted to an apparent scam in which one of its Large Power User customers was approached via WhatsApp to make a large payment on their account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Failing to make the payment would result in the customer’s supply being disconnected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the interaction, the criminal threatened the customer by showing images of a potential disconnection. They then phoned and messaged in quick succession after not receiving a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scammer referenced the correct account number and requested payment into an FNB account, which is concerning given that the customer’s outstanding amount exceeded R1 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The customer suspected that something was awry and messaged the city to verify. He then made a payment to the city account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The customer then made a payment to the correct City account, not directly to the scammer’s bank account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city said that it would never contact via WhatsApp about payments. No city official would request payment via their personal bank account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Importantly, all payments to the City must be made through official City channels, such as visiting a municipal cash office or by making electronic payments using details on the monthly municipal bill,” it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We appeal to all residents to remain alert and report all suspicious encounters. Always pause and verify first by phoning the City\u2019s Call Centre on 0860,103,089.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city noted that it would also never notify residents of service disconnections (water or electricity) via\u00a0WhatsApp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major scam warnings for South Africans <\/h2>\n\n\n
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Michael Lazenby and Yvette du Toit from Ziyasiza<\/a> recently said scammers are a dime a dozen as digital communication becomes embedded in daily life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Messaging scams or ‘smishing’ are incredibly efficient among scammers, and often have higher achievement rates for criminals. Links are also popular among criminals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe links are designed to lure a victim to a fictitious website, which is typically remarkably accurate, most often including correct contact information,\u201d said the experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne click on a fraudulent link and the dark web takes over, triggering keystroke tracking, password harvesting and the extraction of financial data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The details are then monetised using untraceable purchases of gift cards, online subscriptions, digital vouchers and other anonymous transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current-day scamming trends are so successful that the scamming groups can now openly sell the hardware upon which these scams can be executed via various technology platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cybercriminals can also infiltrate legitimate institutional databases, allowing them to access a user\u2019s personal details and even banking credentials to be passed to organised crime groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAffluent individuals and pensioners remain prime targets, with cybercriminals often purchasing stolen databases from compromised financial institutions and service providers,\u201d said the experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese datasets include personal information and, in some cases, banking credentials \u2013 shortening the criminals\u2019 path to a successful attack. The primary defence remains vigilance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They said the golden rule for avoiding scams is not to click any links in messages without first checking their legitimacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The City of Cape Town has alerted citizens about scammers pretending to be city officials on WhatsApp. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":841569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,33],"tags":[2356,2118],"class_list":["post-853201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-cloud-hosting","tag-city-of-cape-town","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853201","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=853201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":853214,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853201\/revisions\/853214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}