Eleven people employed as waiters at a much frequented Canal Walk restaurant were arrested last week for allegedly using a skimming device to commit card fraud and to steal money from their employer.

According to the police report they had obtained information from patrons’ bank cards, after which they used cloned cards for false transactions – removing the corresponding amounts from the cash registers.

The suspects appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Monday and are to remain in custody until their next appearance on 15 October. Only one of the eleven has been provisionally granted the option of bail.

There have meanwhile been arrests countrywide of cellphone shop employees after clients using mobile banking services were swindled out of hundreds of thousands of rands.

And the fraudsters keep coming up with new and more ingenious scams. Elizabeth Viljoen, a 31-year-old receptionist from Ysterplaat, recently went through a nerve-wracking period of uncertainty over her future when she was accused of “stealing” R5 000.

It appears that a gentleman from Grassy Park, who prefers not to be named, had placed an advertisement for a second-hand Ford Sapphire on the www.gumtree.com website.

This advertisement was allegedly answered by someone claiming to be Elizabeth Viljoen, who provided the potential buyer with an MTN MobileBanking account number, into which an amount of R5 000 was accordingly deposited.

The first thing Elizabeth heard about the business was when she received a phone call from a Standard Bank employee, who asked whether she knew anything about a R5 000 deposit. She did not and the money never showed up in her bank account, either.

The next thing she heard about it was when she received a phone call from the buyer who wanted to know when he was getting the car for which he had deposited R5 000 in her account.

When she replied that she had no idea what he was talking about, the man threatened to lay a charge of theft against her. A very distraught Elizabeth went straight to the Milnerton police station, where she told the officer on duty what had happened.

The police said that as long as she did not receive any money everything would be OK. This did nothing to allay her fears, as the buyer of the car by then realised he had been conned and kept making threaten­ing calls to Elizabeth.

She took a day off work to go to her Standard Bank branch, where it was discovered that an MTN MobileBanking account had indeed been opened in her name, using her ID and other details.

Further investigation by the bank revealed that all the money had been withdrawn over a period of four days.

“I don’t know how and when they could have gotten my ID and all my other information,” said Elizabeth. TygerBurger repeatedly tried, with­out success, to get an answer from the 084 270 3751 number which a “Pastor Radloff” had used “on behalf of Elizabeth Viljoen” in answer to the advertisement.

We are still waiting to hear from MTN MobileBanking.