JERRY Mathabathe was at home when his neighbour Elias Barries came to tell him he was scammed right after receiving his grant money.
The madala (69) then realised he was a victim of the same scam. Jerry and Elias (60) from Lephengville in Hammanskraal, Tshwane, went to draw their grant money at different malls at different times when an unknown man approached them.
They said the man was kind and acted like he knew them.
Elias told the SunTeam the man was driving a red car and when he approached him, he told him it had been a while since he had seen him and offered to buy him a cold drink. “He gave me a R200 note and said I must give him R150 so he could buy me a drink with the remaining R50. He then took out another R200 and asked for two R100 notes. I gave them to him without realising the R200 notes were fake.”
Elias said he only realised the notes were fake when he went to the shops. He said when he went to tell Jerry what had happened, Jerry realised the same thing had happened to him.
Jerry, who lost R400 to the scam, said: “I didn’t know the money was fake because I went straight home.”
The men suspected the man used muthi on them because they usually didn’t talk to anyone after collecting their money.
They said they had heard about similar cases but never thought it would happen to them. “We decided not to open a case because we will be wasting the police’s time.
“We can’t even remember the man, but we hope other people will be alerted,” said Elias.
Jerry said: “If I see him again, I’ll teach him a lesson.”
Gauteng police spokesman, Captain Kay Makhubela, advised the madalas to report the matter to the police station.
