Scammers have created strategies to deceive the public, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), based on music artist Davido’s promise of a N250 million gift to charity.
The commission learned about the fraud while conducting online social listening, according to its spokesperson Ikechukwu Adinde in a statement released on Tuesday.
“Exploiting Davido’s benevolence, a group of scammers rolled out an advertorial titled ‘Davido Airtime and Data Giveaway’, which went viral, claiming that Davido is ‘giving out free 5K Airtime and 10GB Internet data of All Networks’ to celebrate his birthday,” the NCC said.
“In the advertorial, the general public is urged to hurry and get the gift by clicking on the links that supposedly redirect them to network sites, where they will be credited with airtime and data.
“This is a scam”, NCC said.
“The NCC wishes to advise our teeming telecom consumers to have nothing to do with the advert or any similar bogus enticements.
“The adverts are what they are – social engineering rip-offs designed to get people’s MSISDN and other information that fraudsters can use later to defraud unsuspecting telecom consumers and members of the public.
“For clarity, the MSISDN is simply the full phone number of a cellphone, in addition to other protocol information. This number is unique and identifies subscribers/owners in a GSM or other mobile networks.
“Therefore, it suffices to state that any unscrupulous person or unethical hacker can use the number and attendant protocol to undermine the privacy of the real owners of the number through identity theft and other scams.”
The NCC warned that if a promo or an offer seems too good to be true, then it is likely untrue.