IN SHORT: An account is calling Facebook users to invest with “Forsage”. But Africa Check has found that the account is impersonating Paga, a financial services company in Africa, and there is no legitimate business in Nigeria called Forsage.
A poorly written Facebook post calls on other users of the social media platform to invest with a little-known investment platform.
It reads: “I want to introduce you all to a paying and a legitimate platform which I joined.. This is a platform that gives you double of your initial investment within 1 hour after investing.. A friend of mine introduce me to the platform.. Its called FORSAGE investment platform I just invested 25,000 and I was credited double of 50,000 all thank's to the admin.”
On 30 March 2023, a Facebook account named Paga NG invited users who were interested in doubling their investments to reach out through a WhatsApp link attached to the post.
Paga is a payment company with over 20 million users across Africa. The Facebook account claiming to be Paga also uses the logo of the legitimate company.
The suspicious account posted a screenshot of a transaction receipt for N50,000, apparently from a client who invested N25,000 and received double back within an hour.
But are these investments and investment opportunities real? We checked.
Signs of a scam
Africa Check searched for “Paga NG” on Facebook and found two results: Paga and Paga NG.
The first of these is the verified Facebook page of the real financial services company and has over 159,000 followers. The account was created 13 March 2010. We also found that the page links to a functioning website which features several customer testimonials.
Paga NG, on the other hand, is impersonating the company and appears to have been started by an individual with just 48 followers and 4,500 friends. There are other red flags that it’s not legitimate, like poorly written messages and a link in the messages that takes you to a WhatsApp account. These are all common features of investment scams we’ve seen on Facebook.
Africa Check found that a pyramid scheme and crypto scheme called Forsage was busted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023. The fraudulent scheme reportedly spanned multiple countries.
We also searched the Nigeria business register and found there were no businesses registered in the country as Forsage Investment or anything similar.
Africa Check has previously investigated similar false investment schemes. To help protect yourself against online scams, read our guide to Facebook scams and how to spot them.
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