It’s not ZANU PF promising 10GB free data, don’t give out your number to the scammers

Leonard Sengere

1 August 2023

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

How to avoid scammers when buying vehicles abroad

Cyber Security, Miscellaneous

6 comments

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Easy Go

1 August 2023 17:02

I think there was another one in Econet “flavour”. It even had a seemingly legit Econet url with passable artwork for you to enroll into the promo. Wish I still had the message but the sender realised it was fishy and deleted it a day later. Scams abound people, and even if you think ‘its just my number anyway’, know that somewhere down the line, someone will leverage your details into some kind of asset scam.

Reply
Z3U5

1 August 2023 18:43

People who believe in such messages in this day and age deserve to be scammed. I have a friend of mine who decided to go into a serious argument with me because of this. He believes in everything, even rubbish. Why have we been forsaken

Reply
Cde che

1 August 2023 21:39

That’s the problem when a certain party is full of thieves and every thief wants to steal using the party’s name. Kkkkk

Reply
Core95

2 August 2023 11:25

Well it’s a scam alright but I have a big problem with recieving messages from presidentED. What’s going on at Econet. Someone at Econet if playing around with our data. And how’s ZANU getting hold of such information.
Seems your MNO can choose whom to f.ck and how to.

Reply
Imi Vanhu Musadaro

3 August 2023 08:15

One day, when people enquire how they receive spam election campaign SMSes, the scam will suddenly turn out to be a “legit” operation to cover up their tracks.

You: “Where did you get my number? It’s a violation of the DPA and Communications act”

PF: “Oh, someone must have used your number on our platform.”

CJM: “Makes sense! Case dismissed”

Reply
Munashe

22 September 2023 05:50

Thank you

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