Back to Africa Check

Kenyans, beware! Ad for jobs at Gelian Hotel, Machakos fake

A poster advertising jobs at Gelian hotel in Machakos, south of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, has been shared on Facebook.

It says Gelian is recruiting for various positions, including room service, waiters, receptionist, chefs and janitors.

Requirements for the jobs are listed – a CV, an ID, a passport photo, “good conduct” and a medical letter – and applicants are promised free accommodation, off days and the choice between three different shifts.

A cellphone number, email address and post-office box number are given “to apply”, as well as a website address, though the link seems to be broken.  

The application process looks suspiciously like job scams we’ve seen that try to con job seekers. But is this job ad legit? We checked.

HotelJob_Scam

Red flags

The applicants are asked to call or send a WhatsApp message to a cellphone number. But we searched the hotel’s website and found none of the numbers listed for the hotel match the one in the job ad.

The PO box address in the ad is also different from the one listed on the website. And none of the jobs advertised could be found in the careers section of the hotel website.

These are all red flags that we are looking at another Facebook job scam

Scam confirmed

Gelian Hotel confirmed our suspicions through their official Facebook account.

The hotel shared the ad, stamped “FAKE” in red, and wrote: “Hello; Kindly take note of this fake poster in circulation. Thank you.”

Republish our content for free

We believe that everyone needs the facts.

You can republish the text of this article free of charge, both online and in print. However, we ask that you pay attention to these simple guidelines. In a nutshell:

1. Do not include images, as in most cases we do not own the copyright.

2. Please do not edit the article.

3. Make sure you credit "Africa Check" in the byline and don't forget to mention that the article was originally published on africacheck.org.

For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false

A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?

Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.

Publishers guide

Africa Check teams up with Facebook

Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.

The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.

You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.

Add new comment

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
limit: 600 characters

Want to keep reading our fact-checks?

We will never charge you for verified, reliable information. Help us keep it that way by supporting our work.

Become a newsletter subscriber

Support independent fact-checking in Africa.