Theft from Absa bank account

The Country Village is a retirement village in Greyton, a small town in the Overberg area of the Western Cape. Between 11am and 11:20 am on 26 March 2018, R235,000 was ****** from The Country Village's ABSA bank account. A hacker accessed the account, added a beneficiary, increased transaction limits to R200,000 then withdrew three unauthorised withdrawals of R70,000, R90,000 and R75,000. The funds were transferred to an ABSA account in Soweto and withdrawn from that account within minutes of being deposited. The account was then immediately closed. The only person with access to the ABSA account in the retirement complex is the treasurer. He has been doing this task for several years and, as a retired actuary, is an extremely qualified and cautious individual. He discovered the theft around 12:30 pm the same day, immediately phoned ABSA ***** Division, reported the theft and had the account blocked. The staff member told him at the time that it was too late and they could not recover the money. At that stage, transaction limits were set at R25,000 and notifications of withdrawals were routinely sent via SMS. ABSA's normal security measures consist of sending SMS's to the account holder's cell phone (our treasurer, in this case) to notify him that - someone has logged onto the website; - sending a one time PIN (OTP) via SMS requesting the account holder to authorise the addition of a beneficiary before a new beneficiary can be added; - and again sending an OTP requesting the account holder to authorise increasing transaction limits. The OTP must be typed into the website before limits can be increased. The transactions that took place were done without any notifications being sent. Our treasurer did not receive any SMS's and certainly did not authorise adding an unknown beneficiary, nor increasing limits. ABSA did nothing in response to the report of the theft. Our treasurer then contacted a friend who worked for ABSA, who in turn contacted its ***** Division. Forms were sent which were completed and returned on 4 April. An investigator was appointed on 14 April. He phoned our treasurer on 3 May to confirm the details of the theft and asked if our treasurer if he had responded to any phishing emails. This was strenuously denied. A charge of theft was laid at the Caledon Police Station on 4 April. When nothing was forthcoming from ABSA after six weeks, our treasurer laid a complaint with the Banking Ombudsman on 14 June. They said they had referred our complaint to ABSA who had three weeks to reply. A rejection letter was received from Absa on 16 July which stated: - that the claim had been repudiated on 26 June (no notification to this effect had been received). - that ABSA's internal forensic investigation had concluded that the website was accessed by means of our treasurer's password and PIN; - that “It is widely accepted that one cannot gain access to an online banking profile without the correct unique access credentials viz your access account number, PIN and password.” - that the most common method to obtain these details is by means of phishing. Their investigation ignored that fact that a phishing mail had not been responded to. It also offered no explanation of how a beneficiary could be added or limits increased without authorisation. Our treasurer disputed the rejection by sending emails stating the above to ABSA and the Ombudsman on 25 July. The email sent to ABSA was read but no response has been forthcoming. The Ombudsman rep**** on 29 July saying that an adjudicator had been appointed. ABSA has consistently ignored this issue until pushed. An investigation was only conducted when requested by a fellow ABSA manager; they did not inform our treasurer of their repudiation on 26 June until asked for a response by the Ombudsman; and their investigation was rudimentary and ignored salient facts. ABSA's high-handed approach and total lack of interest in getting to the bottom of how this ***** could have taken place is totally unacceptable. They were trusted to take care of our money, a service which they carried out adequately in exchange for fairly substantial fees. Surely there should be some guarantee that one's money is being handled competently? On the contrary. At the very first hint of trouble ABSA completely denies any responsibility and places the blame for the incompetence of their banking systems at the feet of those who are the victims! R235,000 is a huge loss for The Country Village and it is simple unacceptable that ABSA should get away with this.