Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), an arm of the government tasked with collecting data about the country, has issued a warning about criminals pretending to be fieldworkers from the organisation.
“The scammers are going door-to-door and claim to be profiling households. They request members of the public to provide their banking details and also to confirm if they have mobile banking apps. It is alleged that some members of the community have been robbed of money by these scammers,” a press statement reads.
Stats SA has stated that this has occurred in Giyani, Limpopo, but it could spread to other parts of the country.
Criminals pretending to be members of the government in some capacity is nothing new with this trick being one that many will warn others of if they’re not aware. The usual advice is to deny access to your property to anyone you’re not expecting, or to at least try and see if the people claiming to be from the government have arrived in a government-branded vehicle of some kind.
From its side Stats SA provides a few ways people can tell that a fieldworker is legit:
- Introduction letters
- Stats SA ID cards
- Bibs with Stats SA branding
- Using the online verification tool
- Contacting the call centre at 0800110248
The online verification tool allows users to search by name, surname, verification number, staff member picture, district or supervisor name.
Finally, to help keep everyone as safe as possible, Stats SA points out that it has temporarily suspended data collection in the country involving fieldworkers and face-to-face interviews. This was done, of course, because of the ongoing pandemic.
“This includes the frame update project, in which fieldworkers go door-to-door collecting contact details from households so that we can use alternative interviewing modes, including computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) and computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI), to ensure the continued provision of much-needed economic and social statistics. We are currently conducting a risk assessment to determine when we can resume face-to-face data collection,” the press statement continues.
[Press Statement] Scammers targeting communities in Limpopo (Giyani).#StatsSA https://t.co/Zj6gfWGSsD pic.twitter.com/shPkpMp1IJ
— Stats SA (@StatsSA) August 3, 2021
