WhatsApp Scam Wipes Out Pensioner’s R1.2 Million Savings

• A Johannesburg pensioner has lost more than R1.2 million after falling victim to a sophisticated WhatsApp scam involving a fake airline promotion
• Fraudsters allegedly used convincing personal details to trick her into clicking a malicious link
• She has since been offered a R20,000 goodwill payment while the dispute with her bank continues

GAUTENG - A retired schoolteacher from Dowerglen in Johannesburg has been left devastated after fraudsters wiped out more than R1.2 million from her bank accounts in a sophisticated WhatsApp scam.

According to Daily News SA, the 63-year-old is currently fighting with her bank, which she said offered her only R20,000 in compensation.

Fraudsters target retired teacher

The 63-year-old pensioner, Luisa Elisabetta Westphal, says she lost her life savings after she was tricked into clicking a fake South African Airways (SAA) link sent during a WhatsApp call from a woman who called herself “Rose”.

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The caller knew personal details about Westphal, including her name, ID number, and travel history, making the scam feel genuine. She was told she qualified for a special SAA discount and was sent a link that looked like an official airline app.

After clicking the link, everything happened fast. Within minutes, Westphal says fraudsters accessed her Nedbank accounts and also her husband’s Standard Bank account. In total, about R1,276,100 was stolen.

The stolen money included nearly R1 million from her home loan access bond, more than R80,000 from her credit card, and about R199,000 from her husband’s account.

Westphal says she never approved any transactions, never received OTP confirmations, and was not warned by the bank before the money left her accounts.

“I did not authorise anything,” she said in her complaint, adding that she only discovered the theft after the money had already been moved.

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Pensioner takes up matter with the bank

She immediately reported the matter, but the situation dragged on for months. Nedbank later confirmed the fraud but said the system was accessed using her login details, meaning the transactions were considered authorised from a technical point of view.

In February 2026, the bank offered her R20,000 as a “goodwill gesture” and closed her case, saying it was not admitting liability.

At the same time, Westphal says she was still being chased for debt linked to the same accounts that were emptied by the scammers. Her monthly home loan payments also jumped sharply after the fraud, increasing her financial pressure.

The pensioner says the experience has left her locked out of her accounts for months, unable to properly manage her finances while investigations dragged on.

Now, she has turned to lawyers to fight her case, arguing that banks should do more to detect unusual transactions, especially large withdrawals from accounts with no previous activity.

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Nedbank says it treats fraud seriously and continues to invest in security systems, while Discovery Bank — where some funds were traced — says it uses real-time monitoring and reports suspicious activity to authorities.

However, for Westphal, the damage is already done.

Woman scammed by fake police

Similarly, a 50-year-old woman from Stellenbosch shared how she was tricked into paying nearly R10,000 after scammers posed as police officers. The woman, who asked not to be named, said she was contacted by a man claiming to be a customs official at Cape Town International Airport. He told her that a parcel linked to her name had been intercepted and contained drugs.She was instructed to read documents sent via WhatsApp and pay money into a “frozen account” supposedly linked to the South African Reserve Bank.

South African lose R2 billion in scams yearly

Previously, Briefly News reported that the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) revealed that numerous people have lost money to online scams. Over the past year, South African consumers lost approximately R2 billion to online scams. SABRIC says the number could be higher, as some cases were not reported.

Source: Briefly News