Nigeria: Scam Alert! Ignore Fake BBC News Page in Nigeria Tempting You to Double Your Money On Their Investment Platform

15 June 2023
Africa Check (Johannesburg)
By Muktar Balogun

IN SHORT: Africa Check has exposed several Facebook accounts falsely claiming to offer investment services. This is yet another scam account, impersonating BBC News and asking Nigerians to invest.

Several Facebook pages have been created, apparently to help Nigerians with their investments.

Posts on the pages claim to offer investment plans to Nigerians to double their money within an hour.

The account, BBC News Nigeria, uses the name and logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

One 29 May 2023 post reads: "Choose a platform to grow and earn financially. NORLAND is one of the best platform that's ever secured and fast in trading and its an easy withdrawal program.

"Invest In NORLAND INVESTMENT and get paid within an hour ,we are 100percent legit,real and trustworthy......Stop letting the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning."

The post then lists the investment structure, including a student category, appear to show that the investment will double almost immediately.

It includes a video and WhatsApp link where those who are interested are encouraged to send a message.

The video has been viewed by more than 40,000 users.

The account has posted similar messages and videos here, here, here and here.

But is this a scheme of BBC News Nigeria and is the investment platform real? We checked.

BBC News Nigeria doesn't exist

The badly written posts raised our suspicions, as the BBC is a well-regarded news organisation staffed by professional journalists and editors.

We also noticed that the page was relatively new, with its oldest content published on 29 May. We also saw the number of followers on the account was low, no more than 50, compared to the BBC's following in Nigeria.

The BBC desk covering Africa is known as BBC News Africa. The original Facebook page of the broadcaster in Africa is BBC News Africa. The Africa arm supports four Nigeria languages: BBC Pidgin, BBC Hausa, BBC Igbo and BBC Yoruba. They are all verified by Facebook with the BBC News Africa page alone having over 8 million followers.

Journalist scammed

Another smoking gun is that a Nigerian journalist was scammed by the same investment platform in April 2023.

The journalist lost N90,000 (about $US193) to the scheme, according to his account reported by the Lagos-based Foundation for Investigative Journalism.

Africa Check has debunked a similar Facebook account claiming to offer investment to Nigerians.

To help protect yourself against online scams, read our guide to Facebook scams and how to spot them.

Read the original story, with links and other resources.
Africa Check is a non-partisan organisation which promotes accuracy in public debate and in the media. Twitter @AfricaCheck and www.africacheck.org

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