South Africans are not falling for fraud because they don’t see it coming. New research from Yazi finds that three in four South Africans already know AI can clone a voice or fake a message, and that this awareness is sadly not changing what happens next.
The data found that South Africans are around three times as likely as UK consumers to actually lose money once fraud reaches them, a pattern that looks less like a knowledge gap and more like a calculated gamble as nearly half of the South African scam attempts in the study (45%) opened with the promise of a way to make money, and for people under financial pressure, saying no can feel like missing out on an opportunity to improve their financial strain.
Yazi’s Global Digital Fraud Study, Who Pays for Trust?, is based on 1 234 responses from South Africa and the UK. The study combined structured survey data with hundreds of voice notes to understand not only how fraud happens, but what makes it work and what the loss means to the people behind the statistics.
The South African findings include:
- 85% of South Africans were impacted by fraud in the past 12 months.
- 20% lost money, compared with 7% of UK consumers, roughly three times as many.
- Among South Africa’s lowest income fraud victims, the median loss equalled 40% of one month’s household income.
- 64% of affected South Africans believe bank or institution staff may be complicit in fraud, compared with 17% in the UK.
- 75% of South African fraud victims recovered none of the money they lost.
- 74% of South Africans already know that AI can be used to clone voices and fake messages, yet awareness made almost no difference to risky behaviour in the study.
The depth of these findings was made possible due to the manner in which the data was collected. Fraud is a subject many people are reluctant to admit to out loud, let alone type into a form. Yazi’s WhatsApp native format lets respondents answer in their own words, and in more than 1,300 voice notes, their own voice, capturing tone and detail a structured phone survey or online form would have missed entirely.
“The study combined structured quantitative questions, open text responses, voice notes and AI moderated follow-up interviews. We wanted to understand fraud from the consumer’s side, not only count incidents after the money had already disappeared. What the study told us is that when fraud succeeds, the financial and emotional cost can be disproportionately severe,” says Tim Treagus, CEO of Yazi.
Fraud awareness isn’t the issue
He adds that the 74% awareness figure is the study’s most uncomfortable finding, because it rules out the easiest explanation: “South Africans are not uninformed about fraud. Most already know the tricks. What the data suggests instead is something closer to hope outweighing caution: the promise of a way out is often worth more than the risk of being wrong.
“That instinct isn’t unique to fraud. It’s the same pull that keeps people buying lottery tickets long after they’ve worked out the odds, and in a market where the upside of escaping financial pressure feels large and the downside feels abstract, a growing number on a screen can be more persuasive than any warning.”
Thalia Pillay, Co-Founder and CEO of Orca Fraud, commented on the findings of the report this week and stated that: “Ultimately, it’s the intersection of technology and localised intelligence that will protect people. Detection has to catch what credentials alone can’t see, and trust has to be earned back.”
That trust gap is one of the study’s most striking findings.
Although 64% of affected South Africans suspect bank or institution staff may be involved in fraud, 47% still report incidents to an institution, a higher reporting rate than the UK. Yazi describes this as a ‘reporting paradox’: in South Africa, people report fraud not because they trust the institution, but because it’s their only realistic route to getting the money back.
The UK picture is different: 41% of affected UK consumers have never told anyone, and UK non-reporters most often say they thought nothing could be done (52%) or didn’t know how to report it (42%). Self-blame is a distinctly South African barrier, mentioned by 24% of South African non-reporters against 3% in the UK.
What the banks don’t tell us
Banks don’t routinely publish their own fraud numbers. Doing so carries real brand and credibility risk. That leaves a gap in the public record that Yazi’s study is positioned to fill: not as an exposé of any single institution, but as the most in depth independent view of South African fraud victims available outside a bank’s own internally commissioned research.
Maya Fisher-French, founder of Maya on Money, believes the higher reporting rates in South Africa should not be mistaken for institutional trust: “Our financial institutions should be deeply concerned that 64% of affected South Africans suspect bank staff complicity in fraud, compared to only 17% in the UK.”
For businesses, fraud also creates costs that are often hidden across different parts of an organisation: “Every scam in this report has a second victim that rarely gets counted: the business whose checkout the stolen money flows through,” adds Dewald Müller, head of SaaS and AI at Stitch.
The findings also underline that fraud prevention cannot sit with consumers alone. For banks and businesses, protecting customers requires a combination of stronger prevention technology, continuous education and practical security controls, particularly as fraud increasingly targets both households and SMEs.
“Fraud can have devastating consequences for retail and business banking clients, particularly SMEs, where it can threaten jobs, livelihoods and the families that depend on them. That’s why investing in digital fraud prevention solutions and cybersecurity training is critical for business owners,” adds Mpumi Mdziniso, senior manager: research and insights at Yazi.
What it costs, in their own words
The human impact emerged most clearly in participants’ own words. One young South African woman told researchers: “It made me feel like I was no longer safe anymore, whether I’m outside my house or on my phone. It felt like I’m in danger everywhere I go.”
Another participant who lost between R5 000 and R9 999 described making repeated deposits after being promised investment returns that never materialised.
Yazi says the findings point to a need for fraud prevention that goes beyond generic awareness campaigns: real time behavioural monitoring, stronger detection of slow building scams and mule accounts, clearer recovery processes, and visible action from institutions that rebuilds trust after fraud occurs.