Kenyan journalist Jeff Koinange not running promotions on Facebook and promising users cash prizes - beware of imposter accounts
IN SHORT: These Facebook accounts in the name of famous Kenyan journalist Jeff Koinange are running promotions and promising users large amounts of money. But they are run by scammers.
The Facebook accounts Jeff Koinange Citizen and Jeff Koinange Citizen Gifts have been running promotions on public Facebook groups with thousands of members.
The accounts use the name of Citizen TV news anchor Jeff Koinange to run their activities. One of them uses his photos. Citizen TV is Kenya's most-watched station.
Both have mastered the art of posting simple quizzes that require little to no effort to answer. They also promise up to KSh65,000 (about US$487) in cash prizes to those who participate.
Their so-called promotions have attracted enquiries from interested users.
But are the accounts and their offers to be trusted? We checked.
Imposter accounts
Africa Check went through most of the accounts' posts. They are poorly written and often contain glaring grammatical errors and spelling errors, indicating that they are not from Koinange's social media account.
The posts appear multiple times in different groups, each promising thousands of Kenyan shillings. It is highly unlikely that Koinange would give out that much money to random people on social media.
The accounts claim that the promotions are from Citizen TV. However, the station has stated that it does not run such promotions.
Koinange's official Facebook page is verified and has over a million followers. We could not find any promotions on the page. It is unlikely that he runs multiple Facebook accounts and uses the less popular ones for promotions.
The accounts are also reaching out to users in the comments section, asking them to initiate a private conversation via WhatsApp. This is a tactic often used by scammers to steal users' personal information or money.
The accounts are run by an imposter and their posts should be ignored.
