By Simon Muli
A website mimicks the branding of e-commerce retailer, Jumia, and promising gifts in its name.
The domain of the website is oficayuda.club, which is not the legitimate website of the online retailer registered as jumia.co.ke.
Verification
When a user clicks on the impostor website link, a message that reads “deceptive site ahead” appears, indicating that the website we are debunking is dubious.
“Attackers on oficayuda.club may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information,” reads the warning notification that is displayed upon clicking on the link.
Ignoring the warning and clicking on the link directs users to a page with a message informing them that Jumia is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
This is strange since the e-commerce retailer marked its 9th anniversary in June 2021. It also asks users to answer the questionnaire provided for a chance to win one of 78 gifts from the retail chain, Carrefour.
The questionnaire asks for information on whether the user knows Jumia, what their customer experience with the retailer is, and whether they would recommend it to their friends. It also asks them to provide information about their age.
After answering the questions, a new message pops up, informing the user that their answers have been successfully saved.
Further instructions require the participant to select a gift box from the set of boxes provided and have three attempts to correctly pick the one containing their reward.
Once the user chooses the ‘correct’ box, another message pops up acknowledging that they have won a Huawei Mate 40 Pro smartphone. However, in order to redeem the said gift, the instructions require the user to share information about the promotion and provide their address. Curiously, there is no mention of Carrefour or how it comes into the process whatsoever.
Once the user agrees to the terms by clicking on the ‘OK’ button, a new message appears with a WhatsApp icon. Clicking on the icon will enable the user to forward the information about the promotion to five WhatsApp groups or 20 friends.
The message to be shared invites other users to click on the link to the website in question in order to win free mobile phones, indicating that this may be a phishing scam.
A WHOIS search of the imposter website shows that it was created on 9 May 2020 in Arizona, US.
That of legitimate Jumia shows it was created on 26 June 2012.
Verdict
PesaCheck has looked into the website mimicking the branding of e-commerce retailer, Jumia, and promising gifts in its name and finds it to be a HOAX.
This story was produced by Africa Uncensored in partnership with Code for Africa with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.
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