IN SHORT: A Facebook page with thousands of followers promises quick cash giveaways, in the name of Kenyan actor Yasmeen Saiedi. But this is another imposter account, trying to scam fans.
The Facebook account Maria Yasmin regularly posts promotions on a Facebook group in Kenya with over 129,000 followers.
The account appears to ride on the popularity of Yasmeen Saiedi, a popular Kenyan actor who played the main character on the TV show Maria which aired on Citizen TV. The account uses her name and photos.
One of its posts, dated 10 April 2023, asks users to identify the number of letters “F” among several letters “E” to stand a chance of winning KSh45,000 instantly.
In another post, it offers 135 people KSh45,000 if they can identify the animal posted as an emoji.
Many other posts on the group have attracted thousands of engagements, including here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
But is this Facebook account really run by the actor? We checked.
Signs of fake account
The posts are poorly written, with random capitalisation and odd punctuations. This is the first sign this is not a legitimate account.
It is also unlikely that the actor would give away such large sums of money to so many people for such simple tasks on social media. This is too good to be true – usually a sure-fire sign that something on social media is not to be trusted.
We checked Saiedi’s verified Instagram account, which has over 763,000 followers, and found no such offers. It’s unlikely that the actor would operate this Facebook account but not feature the ads on her Instagram account.
The account asks those who comment to reach out privately via inbox or the WhatsApp number it has provided. This might be an attempt to scam them.
The account and its promotions are fake.
To help protect yourself against online scams, see Africa Check’s guide to Facebook scams and how to spot them.
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