By Ajibola Osungbohun
Claim: Several Facebook pages using the name of Opay, a Fintech, to claim that Opay is carrying out a Promo on its POS machine.
Verdict: Several Facebook pages claiming to be Opay agent are Fraudulent.
Full Text:
Multiple Facebook pages have been seen to have posted that Opay is giving out its POS machine in what is said to be a promo.
According to pages Opay customers service, OPAY POS services, Online marking advertising, Opay POS distributors customer and POS networking services.
The observation of the post reads, “ PROMO! PROMO!! PROMO!!!
Apply for the Android or Traditional POS for as low as 20,000. Promo Material coming with the POS: Our POS terminal comes with a chair, table, banner, umbrella, ATM card and 1-year free internet subscription also attached to the text from all the pages as a WhatsApp contact.
At the time of researching this, we found that all the pages have gathered thousands of likes and comments here, here, here and here.
Opay is a fintech company in Nigeria dedicated to providing secure, easy-to-use & affordable financial services.
How authentic are these pages?
Screenshots of the Scam Facebook pages
Verification
To ascertain the veracity of these Facebook page links and if they are in connection with or affiliated with Opay, our researcher identified what the company Facebook page looks like.
We found out that the company’s Facebook account is verified with over 300k likes and 500k followers, the address of its headquarters attached to it, and links to its official email, website and customer service contact. We saw that the account was created on 6th May 2019.
Furthermore,this factchecker engaged one of the scam agents via a WhatsApp contact on one of the fabricated page. The conversation further buttress the fact that the pages are fabricated.
Screenshot
Screenshot of Scam agent Conversation with our Researcher
Conversations
However, when we carried out further research, it was found that the company has a verified Opay Business page on Facebook and that the company is currently running a promo at the moment.
Screenshot from Opay Business Facebook page
To validate the research and get the trust, we reached out to Opay through her verified X handle to ask if they have employed agents to help with the promo. Below is the response;
Screenshot of response from Opay X handle
Conclusion
The fabricated page are not runned by Opay, and the fabricated pages were created to defraud social media users.
