Identity theft leaves mom in huge debts and dozen fraud cases

When Lerato Mabaso lost her handbag which contained, among others her ID, little did she know that it would be the beginning of a nightmare that would see her getting blacklisted.

Mabaso, 39, a sales consultant at a gym in Pretoria, lost her ID in 2016 when her car was broken into in Mamelodi, east of Pretoria, and found herself becoming a victim of identity theft which has seen debts amounting to more than R50,000 taken using her identity.

The debt included a R46,000 bank loan and a R5,000 spent on a clothing account under her name.

She also had to deal with more than a dozen police cases in which several companies accused her of renting out trailers and mobile toilets and failed to return them.

From 2018, Mabaso has had more than a dozen cases, ranging from Garsfontein, east of Pretoria, Roodepoort, Brakpan, Benoni to Veereniging and Rustenburg, North West, which related to stuff that was hired under her name and never returned.

"In March 2018, that's when my problems started... Garsfontein police came to my workplace with a complainant claiming that I took her jumping castle and mobile toilet," Mabaso said.

Luckily, the complainant sprung to Mabaso's defence when police were about to effect an arrest.

"They came with the intention to arrest me but the lady [complainant] identified me, saying I was not the one," she said.

Mabaso keeps getting new cases opened some in areas such as  Vanderbijlpark, Potchefstroom and Honeydew and has since been blacklisted due to unpaid loans taken under her name.

"I'm a single parent, at times I struggle to make ends meet and to think a bank can't even offer a R500 loan I cry every time," Mabaso said.

Video clips from some of the CCTV footages from some of complainants show that woman responsible for the crimes is not Mabaso but that was not enough as she needed to deposit numerous affidavits and permanently carries a file with details of the cases that had been opened against her to avoid being arrested.

She has kept some of the images of the woman that has turned her life into a nightmare for three years now.

"In one week, I can get contacted by cops three times... I now can't even change my car or get any loan because I'm considered a criminal," Mabaso said.

She also carries the 2016 affidavit about losing her ID document which have helped her avoid arrests despite more than a dozen warrants of arrests having already issued against her name.

All she wants is for the crimes committed under her name to stop. "I want the lady using my identity to be arrested and for my name to be cleared so that my life can progress for me to achieve my goals," she said.

Bradley Coetzee, from Atlantic Trailers in Vanderbijlpark, one of the companies that had reported Mabaso to police for an unreturned hired trailer in July, said they have had five incidents were trailers were stolen by people using stolen IDs in the last 20 months.

"A woman using Lerato's ID stole a trailer last year... and with Covid-19 and people wearing masks all the time it's difficult to match the face on the ID with theirs," Coetzee said.

He provided a picture of the woman that came to hire a trailer in July and never returned it.