By: Ajibola Osungbohun
Claim: A Facebook user, Nairahub.ng, posted that OPay is giving a grant of N150,000.
Verdict: False
Full Story
A Facebook user posted a sponsored advertisement on its page claiming that Opay will be giving out a grant offer of N150,000 that people should apply.
The post, as of the time of the research, has gathered 1.4k comments, 2.9k likes, and 39 shares.
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In furtherance, the post has an “Apply Now” command to encourage website visitors to click on the link.
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But is there such a grant from OPay? We checked it.
OPay Digital Services Limited is one of the leading financial technology and mobile platforms that offer a range of financial services and services for businesses by rendering payment and financial services. It was established to drive financial inclusion by providing efficient and convenient payment services.
It is known to be a global company with footprints in many emerging markets across Asia, Africa and Latin America. It started its operation in Nigeria in 2018 and is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and insured by the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC). OPay operates primarily online, as their customers use their applications to receive money into wallets instantly and offer transfers in real-time without waiting for end-of-day reconciliation.
Just like other sectors, there have been growing spreads of false and misleading information in the business sector, and the fintech companies are not in exemption, especially since their area of operations is mostly online. There is a need to check the veracity of the claim that Opay is giving grants to the public to protect the millions of people who are using the platform from falling for pervasive fraudulent activities in the sector.
Verification on the Bait Site
Our finding revealed that the link was a blog about Visa Sponsorship “$10,000 U.S. Visa Sponsorship Opportunities in 2024/2025—Submit Application Now”. It is not the authentic website of the Opay, so therefore we found it suspicious, and found it is a bait website.
A Bait website entices the target to give information or visit a poisoned website by offering something of value to the target. In the case of this post, when you show interest, you are asked to send a WhatsApp message to 07048125577. More so, it was discovered that the post was used to drive traffic to unrelated sites, possibly to make people read their advertisement.
We also carried out a check on news of OPay giving a grant of N150,oo0, but found nothing.
On more concrete evidence, we found out that OPay has also asked its customers not to click on suspicious links, reveal their passwords or respond to suspicious calls, emails or texts. They also urged their customers to report anything that did not seem right, such as suspicious transactions in their accounts.
We also could not find any announcement of the grant on OPay’s website, Facebook or X handle.
Conclusion:
The findings from all sources have shown that the website from Facebook is nothing but a fabricated website and not authentic.
