• Google searches are full of fake SASSA websites run by fraudsters that claim to be providing legitimate information.
• These sites harvest your personal details, like ID and phone numbers, as well as home addresses, which they may be selling on the dark web.
• The South African government says that only sites that have .GOV.ZA in their URL are official. All others are to then be avoided.

One of the top Google queries related to the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is “How to check your SASSA status,” and one of the top answers on search leads you to a site called Sassa-Status.co.za.

This site is visually benign, with text instructions on how you can input your ID and phone number into fields to receive a status of your pending SASSA application. The site even uses the official SASSA logo, and has links to other services.

The only problem is, this site does not belong to SASSA, nor the government of South Africa. In fact, we have no idea who it belongs to, and the only information about a potential owner points to a company called “Konza Technology Systems.” Another website included the name of a Kenyan firm, which means that information from South Africans is being sent to East Africa via the site.

What’s worse is that the site asks for very privileged information from users in order for them to get “information” on their SASSA grants applications, namely ID numbers, phone numbers, names, and even home addresses.

This website is not alone. There are numerous popular sites masquerading as the agency, and many of them make it very difficult to identify any red flags at first glance. Another fake website, Sassaloans.co.za, contains vast amounts of legitimate information on how you can apply for things like your NSFAS funding, or apply for a Sassa grants.

This site once again asks for private information and once given, you will have no idea who it is going to. Or even if you will receive your grant status information. This site in particular mixes in official information, such as official locations of SASSA offices, contact details that are legitimate, and even internship opportunity offers.

However, checking out the social media for these pages clearly indicate that these sites are unofficial.

What these sites are doing is harvesting people’s information and what they do with this information afterwards is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they are selling the information on dark web auctions, or supplying phone numbers to unscrupulous advertisers.

Alan Hammond, CEO of Careersportal.co.za, who first notified us about the potential of fake SASSA sites running rampant on the internet, believes that the fraudsters behind these sites are even using the likes of ChatGPT to create low effort content to generate adsense revenue.

“It looks to me like the people behind these sites have just identified that there is a lot of search traffic on these terms, like ‘check SASSA status’ so they are setting up dedicated sites with these keywords in the URL,” he told us.

“They can easily steal [content from official sources or news stories] – which they often do – or they can just use ChatGPT to create basic articles to publish. They then monetise them through Google Adsense.”

According to the government, the only official sources for grant information are those that have .GOV.ZA in their URL.

These include:

• “WWW.SASSA.GOV.ZA,
• WWW.DSD.GOV.ZA,
• WWW.SRD.SASSA.GOV.ZA.”

All other sites should be considered fraudulent and are to be avoided, whether they are giving out legitimate information or not. For a rundown of how to check your SASSA or SRD grant status online, click here.