South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) grant beneficiaries using gold cards will not be able to withdraw their funds from ATM’s in December.
This after Postbank uncovered criminal networks targeting ATM’s to access accounts.
Sassa beneficiaries using the Postbank-issued gold cards are requested to withdraw their social grant monies at any retail outlets nationwide that provide the cashback functionality. These include Shoprite, Checkers, Usave, Pick n Pay and Boxer.
These Sassa grant recipients can also use the Sassa gold cards to make purchases at any place that accepts bank card transactions as the Sassa gold card function fully within the national payments system similar to any other bank card.
Postbank said: “In recent months, Postbank has been experiencing technical glitches that disrupted the smooth withdrawal of social assistance benefits.
“Following extensive investigations, we have uncovered network attacks by criminal elements determined to commit systematic ATM card fraud-related crimes on Postbank payments using sophisticated modus operandi which require further investigation.
“As a mitigating exercise, and in consultation with our partners following the resurgence of these criminal activities at the inception of the December payments, it has become necessary that Postbank suspends Sassa grant withdrawals at ATM’s for clients using the Sassa gold cards issued by Postbank.”
Postbank spokesperson Dr Bongani Diako says millions of grant recipients were affected.
“Beneficiaries on the Sassa gold card are just about six-million, but we had already paid a good chunk of that. We had started with the old age grants; we had done the disability grants. We only implemented this necessary measure when we were starting to pay the child grants. So, a third of the six million thereabouts is the number that we’ve moved to the retailers,” said Diako.
Source: ENCA, SABC News, Times Live, Daily Maverick, SA News, image from Twitter: @Emsamo_News