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The National Financial Ombud’s (NFO) Banking Division says most of the refunds were from fraud-related cases.
The National Financial Ombud’s (NFO) Banking Division has returned more than R60 million to consumers in 2025, which is a significant increase from previous years.
The NFO says most of the refunds were from fraud-related cases, particularly mobile and online banking fraud.
Mobile and online banking fraud now account for nearly 40% of complaints and this is up 15%, from last year.
Head Ombud and the NFO CEO, Reana Steyn, says the increase in funds paid back to consumers is due to a number of factors including the value of complaints.
Steyn says it appears more consumers are falling victim to fraud particularly via phone calls.
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“I think fraudsters are definitely still out there. They are doing this every day. I’ve calculated that we receive about, say, 13 complaints every single workday relating to this fraud. So it’s huge. I think that maybe we’ve given out all the warnings that people will not give out their information, that people are safe, but that’s not the case,” she add.
Steyn says they still see cases every single day where unsuspecting consumers gave out their One-Time Pins (OTP) and clicked on the phone to admit a fraudster.
“I think the fraudsters are just so sophisticated in the way they tell the story. They catch the consumers by telling them there’s an urgent matter or a problem with their bank account and that they are calling from the bank,” adds Steyn.
This while they pay close attention to where the money went after leaving the consumers account, when it was reported to the bank and what they did or could have done to stop the fraud, Steyn says.
“We often recover money for consumers, that the consumer was 100% liable for leaving the account because they enabled the fraudster. But if they then realize it very quickly and they phone the bank and they ask the bank to stop the payment and to stop the account, we look at the time stamp of those phone calls and their records, and if we see that the bank didn’t act fast enough when they could have recovered or stopped the money, then we will ask them to refund,” say Steyn.
She says that in most instances, the consumers fall victim to fraud, and if they willingly hand over their passwords and their PINs, or they approve transactions on their mobile apps or on their phones, it’s not the bank’s responsibility.
Steyn says they haven’t seen many complaints where the fraudsters use AI but warns as it evolves it may only be a matter of time before these type of complaints rise.
She adds that they also see the use technology like True Caller to impersonate the banks phone number.
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