Beware of fraudsters selling eLearning bundles at discounted prices

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Zimbabweans affinity for black markets – exemplified by the sprouting up of black markets for eLearning bundles. In that article, I also noted that bundles being sold via this channel will inevitably lead to scamming.

At the time people were already getting scammed, and it seems many still are being scammed. An education brand called Tuta is one of the recent victim of the scams.

Tuta runs more than 100 educational WhatsApp groups and in trying to purchase bundles at a cheaper rate, they fell victim to a fraudster who ended up pocketing funds from over 50 students.

How did this happen?

A Tuta administrator joined a WhatsApp group where these bundles were being sold. After joining the group the administrator saw activity with other people buying bundles and sending their proof payments. This went on for 5 days, after which sending of messages was then limited to admins and the admin of the group started instructing those who wanted bundles to request via private messages.

Shortly after this, the admin of the group started informing group participants of a promotion that would enable them to buy 10GB at ZW$250. When Tuta inquired about the legitimacy of the bundle they were told that the bundle was indeed legit but was only available on that day and the scammer went ahead to promise that if Tuta could refer 20 buyers they could get the bundle for free.

Tuta enthusiastically rounds the people up and after they paid for the bundles they weren’t credited.

In my last article regarding the black market for eLearning bundles, I noted that Econet had notified subscribers that if they were scammed they couldn’t report to Econet and had to file reports with the police instead. Whilst Tuta has done so, the police are yet to get to the bottom of the issue and the fraudsters are still selling bundles.

So whilst there are many of these groups where you can actually get bundles – there are also many in which you might get scammed, so just be on the lookout for that if you do decide to buy these bundles.