On Sunday, 25 July 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa reinstated the SASSA R350 Social Relief of Distress grant (SRD), saying it will end in March 2022.
He said the decision to bring back the grant was made possible by the slight improvement that the country has seen in revenue collection.
“We are expanding the number of people who are eligible for the grant by allowing unemployed caregivers who currently receive a child support grant to apply,” he said.
“This will build on the strength of our existing social protection system, which is one of the greatest achievements of our democracy.”
Now, while many people welcomed the reintroduction of the grant, it seems none were happier than the scammers – for they were in action the very next day!
SASSA scams are nothing new, but the swiftness, with which these came, caught many by surprise.
The day after the President’s announcement, there were two major scams running already.
One social media post encouraged people to apply for the SASSA grant by using a WhatsApp number, email address and telephone number which was NOT linked to SASSA at all.
The aim of this is to get people’s personal information and then access their bank accounts and empty it.
The other scam doing the rounds told people that SASSA was handing out food parcels and needed them to supply their personal information to have access to it.
A few weeks ago, the fake messages going around on social media led to thousands of unemployed people gathering at SASSA offices in Ladysmith and Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal for the fake R750 food vouchers.
The notice below is fake and does NOT come from SASSA. Details and date on which the application system re-opens will be announced soon #SASSACARES pic.twitter.com/WIngti9jhk
— SASSA (@OfficialSASSA) August 1, 2021
It got to the point where SASSA had to call the police to calm down the situation.
SASSA put out a statement saying: “These reports are not true and are misleading the public. We urge the public to exercise caution and not to be duped by hoax messages.
“We appeal to the public to be vigilant. If people are uncertain about information purporting to be from SASSA, they must contact us immediately to verify the veracity of such information.”
There have also been reports of fraudsters claiming to be SASSA employees who operate in communities with skimming devices.
SASSA CEO Totsie Memela says: “The fraudsters approach beneficiaries and convince them to ‘check’ if their social grant cards are still valid by swiping them through a device.
“By doing so, the scammers are skimming the beneficiaries’ cards for cloning later.
“This gives the scammers time to load a beneficiary's information onto a new card and withdraw all the money,” Memela explains.
Sadly, the level of financial literacy amongst the most vulnerable in our society is nowhere near where it should be, and people are desperate, people are hungry, and therefore they fall for these types of scams.
It is vitally important that you never, ever disclose your personal information to anyone, or on any platform that you have even the slightest bit of doubt about.
Rather be safe than sorry and verify things with SASSA, that is, if and when you can get hold of them.
Now, for the good news! After the long, hard wait for payments in July which only started taking place from the 6th of the month, the payment dates for August have thankfully been moved forward.
The August 2021 social grant payment dates have been confirmed as:
- Tuesday, 3 August 2021: Older persons’ grants
- Wednesday, 4 August 2021: Disability grants
- Thursday, 5 August 2021: All other grants
As always, SASSA has reminded grant recipients that there is no need to rush to withdraw cash on the first day.
Once the money is in your account, it will remain there until you need it.
I am going to keep writing about SASSA-related scams in the hope that it rings a bell somewhere when you come across it.
With the rising cost of living, we really cannot afford to fall prey to criminals and lose our money.
Trust your instincts.
Do not give away your personal information.