My fellow Zimbabweans, when are we going to learn? There are people out there whose job it is to try and relieve us of our hard-earned money.
They are clever about it and so we should keep the golden cybersecurity rule in mind at all times – if it sounds too good to be true, it definitely is.
Do not give out your phone number in the hopes of getting free 10GB of data + ZW$5000 worth of airtime.
There is a scam doing the rounds, claiming to be a ZANU PF promotion offering free data and airtime to all.
We reached out to ZANU PF and they confirmed what we knew to be true. They are not running any such promotion.
Whoever is running the scam knows it’s election season and knows we are likely to believe that a political party would be trying to woo voters with free stuff. Free stuff is indeed doled out in times like these but unfortunately, this is not one of those times.
That may be but naturally, we tried signing up to see what would happen. After entering my burner number I was told,
Congratulations, your Mobile Number +2637XXXXXX is Eligible to receive 10GB + ZWD 5,000. Proceed to Activate your 10GB + ZWD5,000
I decided I would proceed but didn’t know how. Luckily they laid it out clearly,
How to proceed:
1. Share it with 5 groups or 15 friends on WhatsApp (Click on the “SHARE” icon below).
2. You will be redirected automatically to our “ACTIVATION” page after the RED verification bar is filled.
Ah. I wasn’t doing that. I don’t need to proceed further to see how this scam works. I’m not about to spam my friends and family just to assuage my curiosity.
It’s simple enough. They want your data. What for? It can’t be good. That should be enough. We should be wiser in this post-E-creator world.
Also read:
Scammers can now convincingly fake browser windows, including URL. You can protect against that
Botswana passes crypto bill, unlike Zim they want to stop the scams
What’s your take?