IN SHORT: A Facebook account is urging Nigerians to put their money and trust in an investment platform known as United Capital. But the platform is operating illegally.
The Facebook page Daniel Ukpe is offering Nigerians a chance to make money through an investment platform called United Capital.
In a poorly written post, dated 17 September 2023, the account says: “Hello Day my fellow friends I will like to introduce you to a new paying platform which I join now and it is very real and sure platform I INVESTED IN THIS PLATFORM united captain INVESTMENT PLATFORM IT IS REAL AND LEGITIT IS A PLATFORM THAT YOU PAY AND GET DOUBLE OF WHAT YOU PAID WITHIN 1 hour!! I PAID 10k AND THEY PAID ME 30k.”
The post encourages interested users to reach out via WhatsApp and features two screenshots of what appears to be proof of payments from the platform.
We found similar posts here, here, here and here.
But can the investment platform be trusted? We checked.
Signs of a scam
One of the signs of a scam is a poorly written post. In this case, the account says the investment platform’s name is “united captain”. But one of the screenshots attached shows the money was deposited from “United Capital”. We also found similar posts promoting “United Capital” and not “United Captain”.
The platform also appears to have no website and no social media accounts. This is another red flag.
We clicked on the WhatsApp link attached to the post and it led us to an account in the name of “Peter”. The WhatsApp account uses a photo of Tony Elumelu as its profile picture. Elumelu is a Nigerian business executive and founder of investment company, Heirs Holdings. His photo appears to have been used to give legitimacy to the platform being promoted on Facebook.
The post says the platform can double your money within an hour, but also says investors put in N10,000 and received N30,000, which is triple the investment.
Africa Check searched Nigeria's business register and found no record of “United Capital Investment”. This means it is not registered to operate in the country and should be considered illegal.
Read our guide to Facebook scams and how to spot them here.
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