FED-UP with being robbed blind by cheque scamsters, a group of East London business owners teamed up to hire a private investigator (PI) to track down the criminals.

Daryl Els, the private investigator hired by the East London business owners, told BusinessOwner.co.za of more than 30 cheque fraud cases involving R900 000 in recent months.

Els teamed up with another private investigator, Christian Botha (pictured here), after the East London business owners raised money to send them to Johannesburg where they were able to make seven arrests.

Anita Smith, co-owner of KP Signs, came up with the idea of hiring a private investigator after losing thousands to the scam. She says the private investigator cost them R30 000.

Smith fell victim to the scam when a customer, who went by the name of Gerald Wayne, called KP Signs for a quotation to have signboards erected.

Smith says the quote came to  R14 000 with R7 000 required as a deposit. Wayne then faxed a deposit slip indicating that the cash payment had been made.

However, he deposited R30 000 instead of R7 000. He then told Smith that he had “accidentally” included money intended for builders' wages and renovations with the payment. Wayne requested that Smith deposit the excess money into another account.

Smith says she made an electronic transfer, but the next day someone from Absa bank called her to inform her that she was overdrawn. She was unaware that it was a cheque deposit and not cash. Meanwhile, the bank had stopped the cheque payment.

Another business owner,  John Oatley, who runs Chemdry, outwitted a fraud syndicate from stealing over R8 000 from him.

Oatley's suspicion led him to access his internet banking account where he discovered the scamsters had made the inital deposit into his account as a cheque. Two suspects were arrested.


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