IN SHORT: A Facebook page and account trying to profit off the name of Kenyan actor Sarah Hassan claims to give out huge sums of cash to those who participate in its promotions. But these are just scams.
The Facebook page and account Zora Tanya and Zora Citizen are promising Facebook users huge cash rewards for participating in what it calls “promotions”.
The page and account post simple queries and tasks and asks users to respond and win the cash.
They both use the name and photo of popular Kenyan actor Sarah Hassan who played the lead character in Kenya’s popular TV drama series Zora. The show aired on Citizen TV, a privately owned station with national reach.
One of the posts in the page reads: “Thank you so much for yesterday selected winners from ZORA CITIZEN PROMOTIONS … This is your lucky day too … have you ever received or benefited any promotion from ZORA CITIZEN PROMOTIONS worthy Ksh 98,000 under the courtesy of UNICEF AFRICA FOUNDATION.”
Similar posts appear here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
But is the page, the account and the offers legit? We checked.
Fake account and page
The poor writing in the posts, including misspellings and odd punctuation, is the first sign that they are scams.
Facebook allows public figures, such as president William Ruto, to verify their pages on the platform. These pages then carry a “blue tick” verification badge.
The actor’s official Facebook page, Sarah Hassan, is verified, while the page and account offering promotions are not. Notably, too, none of the promotions appear on the official account.
It is unlikely that the actor would run a separate unverified page and account specifically to offer promotions.
Both the Facebook page and account reach out to those who comment and ask them to engage privately to get their rewards. This could be an attempt to scam them.
All signs point to a fake Facebook page and account with scam offers.
To protect yourself from online scams, read our guide to Facebook scams and how to spot them.
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