Absolutely defeated and horrified

On the 27 April 2025, I lost my cellphone after a night out with a colleague in Johannesburg. I got home and reported the phone ****** with MTN and Naked insurance, Mtn gave me a blacklisting number and I went on about my day. The 27 April was on a Sunday, I went to a capitec ATM and transferred myself money to use as I was visiting friends. The next day was Monday, a holiday and on Tuesday I woke up to do my monthly groceries, when I got to the ATM I noticed that I have insufficient funds which I quickly went into the Capitec branch and was told that money on my savings account was indeed used on the 28/05/2025 on Takealot, this was about +- R 7000.00, the bank teller told me that we will have to wait for the Takealot payments to clear before we dispute them as unauthorized so I have to wait at least 48hours. I bought a sim card and went home to do a sim swap, after that was completed I went on Whatsapp, I had a message from Capitec asking me to load documents to complete the loan application, I was shocked and I called the Capitec ***** line immediately.

The lady I spoke to confirmed the Takealot transactions and told me that an amount of R 47 000.00 was taken from my credit access facility (I was not told about this at the branch and no one advised me to log a ***** case). The money was taken out in multiple R 2000.00 using Payshap and Cash send payments as well as Takealot, these transactions were neither initiated nor authorized by me, I have never even used Payshap in all my 10+ years with Capitec. I immediately (since I had no phone) reported them to Capitec Bank by going into the branch but no ***** case was logged while there, only when I called in and lady on the ***** line logged an incident for me and gave me a reference number (***2) and told me they will investigate the matter and their ETA is 21 days.

After the long wait, I got a call from Capitec advising that they have rejected my claim because there is no proof that my pin was changed, when I asked what that meant, she said that the people accessed my app without changing the pin but she could not tell me how. I proceeded to log a complaint with Capitec and was given another reference number (***0), I got a call yesterday from Sabrina who was handling my case, she said my complaint was rejected because my loss was due to a gross ******** activity and should be taken up with the SAPS, it does not fall within the banking conditions. She, too, could not give me any further explanation. She told me that the Takealot transactions should have gone to a different department, which I was not advised of in the beginning and frankly this process was never explained to me.

My biggest problem with this situation is that I am told to pay the Credit facility and the monthly repayment will be R 7 100.00, I cannot afford to pay that and mostly because I did not use this money. I am a single mother and have been with Capitec for over 10 years, surely my banking behaviour would contribute in establishing irregular activity in my account. I have not received any tangible reason why I will not be paid for this incident. I have suffered financial strain this month and emotional strain, with the help of my family and friends I was able to put food on the table. I have lost hope and do not know how I will survive this.

Despite providing all necessary documentation and clearly establishing that I did not authorize these transactions, Capitec Bank has unjustly refused to refund the amounts in question. This decision is both unacceptable and inconsistent with the responsibility that banks bear to protect their customers from *****ulent activity.