IN SHORT: Kenyan Citizen TV journalist Lulu Hassan is without doubt popular with fraudsters. Steer clear of these three Facebook accounts using her name to run bogus promotions.
The three Facebook accounts Lulu Hassan Rashid, Lulu Hassan Ctz and Lulu Hassan Citizen Gift would have you believe they are run by Lulu Hassan, a prominent news anchor on Kenya’s Citizen TV.
The three accounts use her name and photos to run promotions on Facebook groups with thousands of members.
Their posts are often simple queries that are wide ranging and require little effort. But they promise users thousands of Kenyan shillings as rewards.
The accounts have posted on different dates here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
But are the accounts and the offers to be trusted? We checked.
Common fraud tactic in Kenya
Africa Check noted that while the accounts use different photos of Hassan and even have different adaptations of her name, all use the same phone number “0735110472” to engage users on WhatsApp.
We reached out to the number and enquired about the offers. We were told that we were lined up to receive KSh35,000 but we should first pay an “unlocking fee” of KSh499. This is a clear sign of a scam. In such situations, scammers get away with the user’s money and never reward them.
The promotions on the suspicious accounts do not appear on Hassan’s official Facebook page, which has over 1.4 million followers. We also checked her verified Instagram account, which has over 1.5 million followers, and could not find the promotions.
Africa Check has previously debunked such accounts using Hassan’s name here, here and here.
The accounts and the offers are fake.
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