A 75-year-old man is running from pillar to post, desperately seeking to recoup more than R20 000 that was stolen from his bank account three years ago.
Zenzile Mdhlane, who lives in Windmill Park in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, has been to the police station, magistrate’s court, and small claims court in a bid to get back the R23 319. 83 that was stolen from his Capitec Bank account on August 25 2021.
However, going to these government institutions has not yielded any positive results.
Mdhlane lives with his 71-year-old wife, and the elderly couple has no other source of income save for their pension. They get an old-age grant of over R2 000 each at the start of every month.
Speaking to Sunday World, the pensioner said that after R23 319.83 was stolen from his bank account, he opened a case of fraud at the Boksburg police station in August 2021.
R20 000 threshold
A 45-year-old suspect, whose identity is known to Sunday World, was arrested in 2022 and charged with fraud and theft.
In 2023, the matter was heard at the Boksburg magistrate’s court, and the accused pleaded not guilty. He was subsequently found not guilty of all charges.
Following the no-guilt judgment, Mdhlane proceeded to the small claims court in Boksburg in a bid to recoup his money.
However, he could not be helped because the amount he claimed exceeded the stipulated threshold of R20 000 prescribed for the court.
The distraught Mdhlane described his ordeal, saying that on August 25 2021, while he was in the Boksburg CBD in the afternoon, a man approached him and offered to load free R50 airtime on his cellphone.
Suspect acquitted of fraud and theft
He handed his phone to the stranger to load the free airtime for him.
A few hours later, said Mdhlane, he realised that his bank app was not working. He then noticed that his account had been wiped clean.
In the bank documents submitted to court during the trial, an amount of R23 319.83 was taken out of Mdhlane’s account on August 25 2021.
The same amount was transferred to the man’s bank account. The suspect’s bank documents, which we have seen, were also submitted to court.
Despite this evidence, the court found the suspect not guilty of fraud and theft, and Mdhlane said the magistrate never ordered that the money be reimbursed to him.
Mdhlane, who is pleading for legal assistance, said that during the trial, the accused said that he did not know how the money got into his bank account.
“I really need my money back. The people at the small claims court said I should reduce my claim to the R20 000 threshold and come back with a lawyer so that they can help me,” said the pensioner.
Victim of banking fraud
Capitec confirmed the incident and said Mdhlane was a victim of banking fraud.
“Our team is aware of the incident and sympathises with our client, Mr Mdhlane. An investigation found that he fell victim to remote banking fraud,” said Capitec.
“On August 25 2021, at 12.57pm, our client was approached by fraudsters who required him to perform a purchase on his app before receiving a promotion [free R50 airtime].
“The fraudsters are smart at social engineering and know how to gain a client’s trust, ensuring that he gave them his device and access to his banking app to perform the transaction.
“Unknowingly to the client, they performed a transaction of R23 319.83 from his device.
“We can confirm that no Capitec employees or systems are responsible in any way for the unauthorised transaction.
“In this situation, the client unfortunately informed the bank after the transactions had been made. Our team was made aware of the fraud at 3.44pm, nearly three-and-a-half hours after the fraud took place.
“Fraudster syndicates are quick to action and moved the funds to a different account within an hour.
“When we received the instruction to block our client’s account, the funds had already been moved and utilised at 2:27pm, making the team unable to recover any funds.”
Failure to prove elements of fraud
Legal analyst Nthabiseng Dubazana of Dubazana Attorneys said the only recourse Mdhlane has is to request the state appeal the not guilty verdict.
“He can request the state appeal the judgment at the high court. The likelihood that the court will find that the accused is not guilty is because the state’s case was extremely weak,” said Dubazana.
“The state could not prove all the elements of fraud and theft. The elements of fraud are misrepresentation, the act itself, unlawfulness, and intention.
“The elements of theft are the act itself, the intention and the unlawfulness. The state struggled to prove all the elements of the charges.
“If they could not prove malicious intent, then the accused would walk scot-free.”
