Scam Archives - The Running Mann

29th September 202627th October 2026

Cedric the Skelm (WPA turns blind eye to senior official’s World Relays travel scam)

Cedric van Wyk is a long-serving, senior Western Province Athletics (WPA) and Athletics South Africa (ASA) technical official who appears to be scamming athletes and administrators, including other WPA officials. Van Wyk advertised an all-inclusive World Athletics (WA) endorsed trip from Cape Town to Botswana for the World Relay Championships. The trip was bogus and never materialised. However, a WPA Disciplinary Committee found that his alleged fraud was a “private contractual dispute”. Van Wyk is therefore free to continue running scams in the Western Cape as long as he is careful not to use WPA logos and letterheads. World Athletics logos, on the other hand, are fair game.

Cedric van Wyk, the senior WPA official at the centre of an alleged travel scam scandal.

9th June 202610th June 2026

It’s 100% my wife’s fault! (How I fell for the ‘One in your Green Number’ scam)

I am a well-trained husband. It’s taken the better part of 20 years but I am now mostly domesticated and largely housebroken.

My wife Kathy ran the 2007 Down run. I seconded her that year. It was hard work and a stressful job. She got out of running the 2008 Up run (just before doing her long run I should add) by falling pregnant. Kathy ran several more marathons and Two Oceans ultras but never felt the urge to return to Comrades.

Kathy ran the 2007 Down run with her father Clive Allen. Clive has a personal best time of 6h10 at Comrades and fell for the “one in your Green Number” scam six times.

17th February 202617th February 2026

Anatomy of a Scam (An investigation into race entry scamming)

With unprecedented demand and road running race entries selling out across the country scammers are having a field day fleecing runners desperate for entries.

It is difficult to know whether all the scamming is done by one person using different numbers or whether there are multiple scammers. Some numbers definitely belong to the same person and there is at least one number, 0738823545, that has been in use for over six years. It is also difficult to estimate how many people have been scammed over the years but the number of victims is likely in the thousands.

15th February 202617th February 2026

Ask the Admin: How to prevent getting scammed on Facebook

With the proliferation of race entry scamming I asked Demitri Baroutsos, group admin of the popular Cape Town Runners Community, for his advice and insights on how to prevent being a race entry scamming victim.

Demitri Baroutsos is a the group admin of the Cape Town Runners Community group and helps keep the 31,000 members safe from scammers.

8th February 202623rd September 2026

A List of Known Race Entry Scammers

Below is a list of South African mobile numbers confirmed to be involved in race entry scamming. Their modus operandi is to create fake profiles on Facebook so there is no point in listing the names as they are fake and will keep changing.

This list will be updated as new scamming numbers emerge – feel free to email me on therunningmann@gmail.com or DM on my social media profiles with scammer details.