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Fake papers used to get credit 06 July 2009 Obtaining fraudulent financial statements that 'prove' you are financially sound is easy in Johannesburg. If you are determined and know what you are doing, you would probably get away with goods worth thousands of Rands. The Sowetan newspaper managed to buy forged pay slips and bank statements from two Internet cafés - Copy & Print and Rocky Print, both in Rocky Street, Yeoville - for R450 a set. Generally, it costs potential conmen about R150 for a pay slip and R300 for a bank statement. If you are a foreigner, you can buy asylum papers for a mere R150. Credit reference For a bit more, you can also get a fake proof of residence - that's utility bills used to prove your address. It will cost another R200 to get a certified copy of an ID that the fraudsters get stamped through a contact at Yeoville police station. The Sowetan took a pay slip and a bank statement to Absa and FNB branch managers to have a look at them. According to a manager at one of the two banks, the pay slip looked genuine at face value. She said the only way to verify the documents was to "call the company, in this case Stats South Africa, to verify employment, your employment number and salary". She said this was done when they were suspicious. But the fraudsters can easily sidestep this hurdle. They can provide a credit reference for R200. They put one of their companies' contact details on the pay slip, and when the bank or retail store calls for a reference, the person who answers will vouch for the customer. An FNB manager was shocked at how close the fakes resembled the real documents. "We also get genuine-looking retail store statements. To pick it up you would have to go the extra mile and call the companies," she said. A fake ID seals the deal. Professional syndicate According to Banking Ombudsman, Advocate Clive Pillay, this is where corrupt Department of Home Affairs officials come in. "We find it extremely difficult to deal with this sort of thing," said Pillay. "There seems to be a very professional syndicate that produces IDs but with someone else's ID numbers. This makes it very difficult for banks." Standard Bank spokesperson Erik Larsen said: "The banks are working closely with Home Affairs to find a solution to the problem by using a thumbprint recognition technique." Neither the South African Banking Risk Information Centre nor the police have detailed statistics on incidents of ID theft. Sabric CEO Kalyani Pillay said: "ID theft is, unfortunately, an all too common occurrence. From well-known scams such as the deposit and refund scam, through to newer methods which can use a combination of the Internet and printed documents, criminals, it seems, are still getting their own way." Buying the fake documents almost turned out to be a mission impossible. We were initially under the impression that if you had money the deal would be swift, but the Internet café owner did not trust me and my photographer colleague, so we had to ask an acquaintance of his to buy the documents . It took about one and half hours to seal the deal. |