The South African Banking Information Centre has reiterated its call on the public to be alert at all times when using bank ATM's.
Sabric CEO, Kaylani Pillay, said ATM scams are a big problem in South Africa all year round and not just during the busy festive season.
She said there are precautionary measures that bank clients can take to prevent falling victim to ATM scams.
"Sabric would like to alert and create awareness around this, to say to bank clients they must be cautious of strangers that offer them assistance or help when they are trying to do their transactions at an ATM because very often they do this because they try to distract you in order to get your pin number and possibly have r card skimmed so they can copy the mag-stripe data sometimes they have devices already inserted into the ATM. So the important thing for bank clients is to remember to never take assistance from anybody even if the person is wearing something that looks like it's logos of the bank, if you have a problem at the ATM rather stop your transaction go into the bank. If your card gets trapped in the machine don't move from the ATM until you make the call to your bank".
" Very often banks call centre number will be at the ATM, if its not just for your risk mitigation that you always have your banks call centre number as part of your phone contacts, so that you are always able to make that call".
"If you think the ATM is faulty rather cancel your transaction and go to another ATM or contact your bank and let them know that there seems to be a problem".
"Don't let anyone stand too close to you when you are doing your transaction Because people stand to close enough to you they will be able to read the pin you are inserting on the keypad because they already probably have had the device installed that will copy the mag-stripe data".
"I think one of the very important prevention mechanisms that we can put in place as bank clients is to set our daily limits as low as possible, because if your card ever gets compromised and somebody draws money out of your account at least minimising the amount they can take out and if you are registered for the updates you will receive notifications if somebody is drawing money out of your account so you can stop your card immediately" she said.
