AN alleged sales representative is scamming local businesses out of thousands of Rands.
Going from business to business, she approaches staff members under the pretence of collecting money for an advertisement placed with a local news organisation – never approaching or speaking to the managers or owners themselves.
She calls herself Megan White, or says she is collecting the money on behalf of Megan White.
According to JBay Motors owner Divan Bezuidenhout, one of her victims, she approached the cashier in May asking to speak to him.
“The cashier directed her to my office, but she never came into the office or spoke to me,” says Bezuidenhout.
“However, she told the cashier that I gave permission for the payment, which was made.
“On our analysing the video footage, it is clear that the woman stood at my office gate for some time, before returning to the cashier – gi-ving the impression that she had spoken to me.”
Upon payment, she supplied the cashier with a hand-written invoice, stating the amount (R550), her name (Megan White) and the name of the company she works for (Bizzgrow). Bizzgrow is a recruitment agency in Pretoria, and is not affiliated with this scam.
JBay Motors is not the only business that fell victim to her scam. True Technology, Trawlers and Beesland Butchery also lost money. The only difference was that they received a formal invoice, also sporting the logo and contact information of Bizzgrow.
In yet another scam, JBay Motors was contacted by Angela Blake from Xplosive Media via email, demanding payment for two advertisements placed in a booklet Keep it Local, which is only distributed in Cape Town.
She threatened them with legal action should they not pay by the end of the day.
When asked for proof of the placement of the advertisement, she supplied them with an outdated advertisement that was published in another publication. She even went so far as to provide them with a fake email, riddled with spelling errors, from Bezuidenhout approving the placement of the advertisements.
Upon investigation, it was established that all the information on the invoice was fake.
