THEY were mourning the death of their loved one and were relieved when a woman offered to help with funeral arrangements.
She promised the family she would buy them groceries for the funeral, but it turned out she had other plans.
She conned the family out of R15 000 that they had planned to use for the funeral.
So on Thursday, 23 December, the family from Etwatwa in Ekurhuleni held the funeral without food.
Relative Mathilda Tshabalala said the scammer visited them on Wednesday 22 December, pretending to want to help.
“We opened our home to her and she told us she once met my late sister, Mary Mtshali (49) and as a social worker, she wanted to help with groceries. We welcomed the gesture.
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“She requested an Uber to take me, my sister’s daughter Palesa (20) and cousin to Shoprite Mayfield in Daveyton to do groceries,” she said.
Mathilda said they were excited, not knowing there was a price to pay.
She said they filled two trolleys with groceries and the woman cunningly managed to convince Palesa to hand over her two cellphones while she went to collect a third trolley.
She then disappeared with two Samsung cellphones worth R6 000 and transferred R15 000 from a banking app on one of the phones.
“We looked for her in the whole shop, but she was nowhere to be found. The phones were gone. We were left with two trolleys full of groceries and we were so embarrassed and hurt,” she said.
She said when they tried to withdraw money to pay for the groceries, R15 000 was gone.
Mathilda said they were hurt her sister was buried like a pauper, while she had a policy to bury her.
Sergeant Raider Ubisi of Putfontein police station said cases of fraud and theft were opened.
