Johannesburg, South Africa – Sasol is warning the public to be aware of criminals who are pretending to be from Sasol’s Supply Chain function, who are using fraudulent requests for quotations (RFQs) to extract personal information, goods and even money from unsuspecting businesses. 

“Sasol has become aware of this new wave of phishing and procurement-related scams that are committed in its name, aimed at both registered and unregistered suppliers,” said Eben Kok, Senior Manager: Supplier Management and Transformation at Sasol.  “These scams typically take the form of RFQs or similar purchase requests.”

How the scam works: 

The fraudsters pose as either Sasol employees or as companies mandated to act on Sasol’s behalf and send businesses a request to tender for the supply of certain goods. 

The text message is sent to registered and unregistered Sasol suppliers informing them of an open tender to provide specific goods. Unregistered suppliers are encouraged to send their company details and CK document to info@sasolsgroupsa.com or call 012 743 6638 while registered Sasol suppliers are often merely  requested to just tender to supply that product. 

“In most instances, these scammers posing as Sasol employees, request a product so specific that it can only be procured from one ‘unique’ business,” Kok explained  “This ’unique business’ then requests payment for the niche good but delivery never takes place, thus conning the unsuspecting victim.” 

The correspondence documentation may look convincing, therefore it is important for people to be vigilant. Below are tips to help the public to ascertain whether or not the correspondence is fake:

• Sasol will only contact you from a Sasol email address (name.surname@sasol.com), never from a sasolsgroupsa or a Gmail or Yahoo or any other generic mailbox address, nor will we ask you to submit information to such an address.
• Sasol will not ask you to send your full company profile or your banking information via email. 
• Sasol will not request you to pay any fees in order to become a Sasol supplier or to participate in the RFQ/ Bid nor will we ask you to deposit money through Retail outlets via Mobile Money Service on a cellular account number, i.e.  063 894 6813.
• There are only two mechanisms which RFQs are issued by Sasol:
  • Electronically via SAP by the ‘once-off’ supply chain team. When printed, this document looks the same as the Sasol purchase order.
  • Manually by Category Management or Capital Project Procurement, which will take place via email or an Ariba invitation.
• All Manual RFQs are consistently structured in the same way.
• The document will always request electronic delivery to bids.secunda@sasol.com. No other email addresses should be used or copied.
• The subject line of the e-mail will always contain the following information:
  • The name of the responsible Sasol Supply Chain Specialist/ Advisor
  • The closing date and time
  • The RFQ unique reference number

Most importantly, businesses are advised not to respond to an email or text message that they think might be fraudulent. Rather, Sasol encourages companies to get in touch with the company to establish the validity of an RFQ or procurement request, via the Sasol Contact Centre, which is (+27) 0860 104 777 or contact.secunda@sasol.com. 

Sasol also encourages all individuals who have received similar correspondence to please report RFQ fraud to the police and rfqfraud@sasol.com.