GEORGE NEWS - A George businesswoman Monica Kruger (41), who has lost about R1,8 million through internet banking fraud, will apply for an interdict in the Gauteng High Court on 29 November to force Absa Bank and Vodacom to release information relevant to fraudulent transactions on her cheque account.
On 18 June, R2m was transferred from Kruger's cheque account to a Capitec account in 30 minutes through 80 transactions of R25 000 each.
According to court documents, the information she is trying to obtain will assist forensic cyber experts in their investigation into how the transactions took place and to determine the identity of the perpetrator(s).
Kruger says in her affidavit that an illegal sim swap was done on the night before her account was accessed by the thief or thieves on 18 June. She discovered it the following morning after finding that her phone had been disconnected.
She immediately contacted the bank. By then her account had already been frozen the previous evening after the irregular activities.
Capitec froze the unknown account on their side and managed to pay back almost R200 000 to Kruger.
In her affidavit, Kruger says that she has "tirelessly" tried to obtain the complete, unedited records from Absa and Vodacom needed for an independent forensic investigation. Kruger says Vodacom has also failed to provide the voice recording of her instruction to not, under any circumstances, allow a sim swap without her express permission and physical presence at a Vodacom shop.
According to court documents, the forensic investigations conducted by both Absa and a forensic expert whose help Kruger called in, have revealed that there is no evidence of negligence on her part. She received an SMS a week before the theft, in which she was informed by Vodacom that a sim swap had been initiated on her account.
On the same day, she also received a call from someone pretending to be from Vodacom, advising her that the SMS was sent in error and that she should ignore it.
"The sim swap was cancelled and I was advised by the person that I dealt with at the call centre that the account had been 'flagged' (a note is made on the customer's account indicating that there has been an attempt to do a sim swap by unauthorised persons)," she says in her affidavit.
On 18 June she received a similar SMS alerting her of a sim swap, but because of the assurances provided to her by Vodacom, she thought that it was a duplication of the previous notification and did not follow it up.
This proved to be fatal. Transaction records from the bank show that on that same day, in about 30 minutes, several large amounts were transferred from her flexi bond and credit card accounts to her cheque account. The R2-m was then transferred into an unknown Capitec account.
According to the affidavit of the digital forensics expert called in by Kruger, Adrie Stander, the IP addresses linked with the fraudulent transactions are both allocated to Vodacom and they traced one of the addresses to a building in Commissioner Street, Johannesburg where an Absa branch is based.
The court application is aimed at obtaining, among others, unedited logs of internal access to and actions on Kruger's bank account three months prior to the theft.
From Vodacom, the applicant wants to obtain the identity of the user(s) of the two relevant IP addresses, as well as all documentation (including all Rica documentation) used to perform the first attempted sim swap and the second, successful sim swap, among others.
Mark Heyink, Kruger's attorney, did not wish to comment, saying that he does not want to jeopardise the case by giving a public opinion before the case is heard.
Vodacom states in court documents that in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, it is "entitled to resist in providing the documentation" that Monica Kruger is requesting.
Absa denies being the cause of any loss suffered by Kruger and denies all responsibility and liability, according to court documents.
The bank promised a response to a request for comment, but it did not reach the newspaper before deadline.
Vodacom's measures against fraud
Vodacom spokesperson, Byron Kennedy said he could not comment on the case as it is being heard in court (sub judice), but explained that the company has taken additional measures in recent months to combat fraudulent sim swaps.
This has resulted in a marked decline of instances in the past year. An estimated 0.004% of sim swaps at Vodacom are "potentially involved in fraudulent banking activities".
Kennedy said Vodacom is also developing solutions using biometrics to assist banks in authenticating their customers. The company has furthermore put a system in place that allows banks to check when last the customer requested a sim swap on a specific mobile number before they send a one time pin (OTP) to that number.
This has already been implemented by some banks, allowing them - for example - to prevent flagged customers from adding a beneficiary during a specific window period.
ARTICLE: ALIDA DE BEER, GEORGE HERALD JOURNALIST
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