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“This is the fraud department”

A call from your bank's fraud team, warning you about fraud and asking you to move your money somewhere safe. How bank impersonation calls work, and the habit that stops them.

5 October 2026 · 3 min read

The message

A reconstruction. The bank, people, numbers and amounts are fictional.

SMS · MARULA BANK · 14:06

Tamboti Bank: Debit order R2,499.00 to SKYVELD DIGITAL pending on acc ..4471. Not you? Our Fraud team will contact you shortly.

Incoming call · 14:09 · the number on screen looks like Tamboti Bank's

"Good afternoon, Mr Sewpersadh, this is Dean from Tamboti Bank's Fraud Clearance Department. Before we start, a reminder: the bank will never ask for your PIN or your passwords.

We've stopped one debit order, but two more are queued from the same merchant and your profile has been compromised. To protect your funds, please open your app and move your available balance to a secure holding account while we reverse them. I'll give you the reference.

Please stay on the line. If the call drops, the case closes and the debits go through. And switch off your app notifications for now, so the fraudsters can't see what we're doing."

Why it works

It arrives in the right order. First the text, then the call, exactly as you'd expect from a bank that has spotted something.

The number looks right. SABRIC warns that criminals can mask their numbers so a call seems to come from a legitimate company.

The caller warns you about fraud. Capitec describes this exact move: a fake "Fraud Clearance Department" that opens by reminding you never to share your banking details, often after a scam SMS about debit orders. It's disarming. Who warns you about scams, if not the people fighting them?

And nobody asks for your PIN. Instead, you're asked to make the payment yourself, in your own app. From the bank's side, that looks like you, on your phone, choosing to move your money.

This is where the money is. SABRIC's 2025 figures put digital banking crime at R2.4 billion, up from about R1.9 billion in 2024, with banking apps involved in more than 70% of those losses. BusinessTech's report on the figures counted 110,074 incidents and noted that most were driven by social engineering: people manipulated, not systems broken into.

The field marks

  • Authority. "Fraud Clearance Department." A title that discourages questions.
  • Fear. Your profile is compromised and your money is leaving.
  • Urgency. Two more debits are queued.
  • Borrowed trust. The bank's name, the bank's number on screen, and an anti-fraud warning to set the tone.
  • Secrecy. Stay on the line. Turn off notifications. Both cut you off from the one channel that could warn you: your real bank.
  • The ask. Move your money to a "safe" account.

The habit that stops it

Spot the ask. Switch the channel.

The ask is to move money, approve a payment or read out a code. That's the tell, however convincing the rest of the call is. Capitec says it will never ask you to transfer money to a "safe account" or approve a transaction to stop fraud. Standard Bank says it will never call to ask you to move your money to an account you don't know. SABRIC says banks will never ask you to confirm confidential information over the phone.

Then switch the channel. Hang up, even mid-sentence. Call the number on the back of your card, or the one in your banking app, and ask whether there's a problem. If you can, use a different phone. A real fraud team will still be there when you call back. A fake one won't.

Hanging up on your bank feels rude. It's the most useful rudeness you'll ever practise.

Sources

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