SASSA grants: Withdrawals on gold cards suspended for December

Postbank has advised all SASSA grant beneficiaries that ATM withdrawals using the gold cards have been suspended for December only. 

This comes as a number of beneficiaries (old age, disabled and children) could not access their grants on the specified payment dates for both November and December. 

ATM WITHDRAWALS SUSPENDED ON SASSA GOLD CARDS

SASSA had announced that older persons and their associated grants will be paid first followed by disability grants and child grants with the dates as follows:

Older persons – Thursday, 1 December

Disability grants – Friday, 2 December

Children’s grants – Monday, 5 December

In a statement, Postbank said it has been experiencing a number of technical glitches that disrupted the smooth withdrawal of social grants. It added that an investigation has uncovered a series of network attacks by criminal elements determined to commit systematic ATM card fraud related crimes on Postbank payments using sophisticated modus operandi. 

“As a mitigating exercise, and in consultation with our partners following the resurgence of these criminal activities at the inception of the December payments, it has become necessary that Postbank suspends SASSA grants withdrawal at ATMs for those clients using the Postbank issued SASS gold cards,” the state owned bank said.

Postbank further advised SASSA beneficiaries using the Postbank issued gold cards to withdraw their social grants monies at any retail outlet nationwide that provides cashback functionality such as Shoprite, Checkers, USave, Boxer and Pick n Pay.

“We assure customers that a dedicated team of professionals assisted by experienced external experts as well as law enforcement agencies have been assigned to deal with this challenge and great progress has been made to close down all avenues used by these criminals.

“Postbank is aware of the impact that this change in payment channels will have on the social grants beneficiaries and other stakeholders, and we apologise for the inconvenience.”

Postbank

ALSO READ: Is SASSA replacing its gold cards? – Here’s what we know