I thought I was savvy about scams and would never get caught. But when my cell phone was stolen I learned a big lesson.

I had my banking app on the phone, but always had to tap in my PIN, so I figured that was safe.

I had internet banking on my desktop and had remembered the banking password to Google Chrome, but that was OK because the desktop is password protected.

So, my cell phone was stolen and the thief, presumably having seen the Standard Bank app icon, Googled standardbank.co.za, must have found my email address somewhere else on my phone (even though I don’t use it for emails), entered the email address and Google very obligingly filled in the password for him. He added himself as a beneficiary (the OTP was sent to my phone, of course), and cleaned my company accounts of R123 000.

Fortunately, his banking details were still on our profile when I discovered the fraud and Capitec froze his account with our money still there. We then had to go through the laborious process of trying to get it back, and, thanks to Capitec, we did.

Beware!