Back to Africa Check

Beware of fake ‘Higher Education Loan Board’ page on Facebook

A Facebook page calling itself “Higher Education Loan Board” is trying to fleece Kenyan university students.

The page shows the genuine logo of the Higher Educations Loans Board, the government agency that provides loans to poor university students. 

But the page was set up on 1 March 2018 and has posted multiple messages unrelated to the work of the student loans’ agency.

A post published on 2 December 2021 is an appeal for money, telling the story of a student who apparently contracted the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea after being raped. The post asks the public to help raise KSh15,000 for treatment. 

Other posts have announced the sale of a laptop and offered writing services for academic proposals, projects and CVs.

Africa Check has previously exposed other fake Facebook pages mimicking various organisations in the country.

Scam_Fake

Beware of fake education loans board pages

The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) has posted a warning about pages like this and listed its official social media handles from which Kenyan students should get help.

The board shared a screenshot of a private Facebook group called “Higher Education Loans Board (HELB)” and stamped it “FAKE”.

Kaa radar. Beware of fake HELB Pages. Only seek information from the genuine HELB Social media platforms - Facebook [@HELBPage] and Twitter [@HELBPage],” it said.

Republish our content for free

Please complete this form to receive the HTML sharing code.

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.