Fraud happens everywhere - on the cellphone, online and even in stores - but it should not happen on frozen bank accounts.

Peter Mosiane, 58, of Mahikeng, North West, had his Absa bank account hacked and his money pilfered in two days. The mystery, though, is that the account had been frozen.

Mosiane contacted Sowetan after reading an article in the paper a week ago in which an Absa client's account was emptied in two hours while he was flying to Port Elizabeth. Since then, more consumers have shared their experiences with the bank.

Mosiane said on Friday July 13 he received an SMS notification that two amounts of R750 had been transferred to someone. As it was his lunch hour, he dashed to Absa to inquire about the illegal transactions.

After a bank teller confirmed that R1500 had been sent to two recipients, he asked her to freeze his cheque account while Absa was investigating. This was done, he said.

"I was shocked when a further R2000 was transferred from the same account at 4.30pm the same day," he said.

A day later, on Saturday, a further R9000 was sent to a number of recipients although the account remained frozen.

As he was at a relative's funeral in Lichtenburg, he had to rush to a nearby Absa branch to make further inquiry.

"They discovered that the fraudster was transferring money from my savings account into my cheque account before doing all these cash sends to friends."

The bank also closed his savings account, hoping the hacker would not have further access into his accounts. "I was convinced that they got it right this time until I ran out of petrol and had to use my petrol card," Mosiane said.

His petrol card is linked to his cheque account, and the moment he swiped it to pay for the petrol, his cheque account somehow got activated.

Soon after paying for petrol, further transactions amounting to R9398 were effected on his "frozen" cheque account.