Standard Bank has suffered a spate of client complaints on social media over alleged fraud attempts on their accounts. (Photo: Brendan Croft/Gallo)
Gallo Images/Brendan Croft
Standard Bank has downplayed recent social media complaints from clients claiming to have suffered fraud attempts on their accounts, but Google Trends data suggests otherwise.
Africa’s biggest lender denied suffering a systems breach when News24 questioned it on 2 July about the sudden spike in reports on social media platforms like X and WhatsApp that clients were seeing fraudulent transactions or money being missing from their accounts. Clients, including three-times Comrades Marathon winner Gerda Steyn, also complained about difficulty in getting through to the Standard Bank fraud hotline, which made it challenges to put a hold on affected accounts.
“Standard Bank experiences, like all institutions across the globe, fraud attempts from multiple jurisdictions. This trend or pattern is no different,” the lender told News24 on 3 July when for a second day clients continued to flood its mentions on X with reports of alleged fraud, with many claiming the attempts stemmed from Brazil.
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