Scam post falsely claims Ethiopian bank is giving away holiday prizes

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 13, 2023 at 18:48
2 min read
By Tolera FIKRU GEMTA, AFP Ethiopia

A Facebook post claims that the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) is giving away various prizes on the occasion of the Ethiopian New Year, and asks users to submit their telephone numbers to receive the items. However, this is false: CBE is not offering any such prizes and has warned customers about scammers who steal money from accounts through phone calls pretending to be from the bank.

"Good news from Ethiopian commercial bank. Don’t miss out on this opportunity. A new challenge for the new year. We are pleased to announce that our company CBE is giving many prizes for people who follow and promote our page," reads the post published in Amharic on September 10, 2023.

The state-owned CBE is the largest bank in Ethiopia.

"This challenge will last until Pagumen 6 in the Ethiopian calendar [September 11 in the Gregorian calendar] and everyone who views this post will be rewarded by sharing it with only 10 people," adds the post, which has been shared more than 840 times.

Screenshot of the post false, taken on September 11, 2023

It then lists various prizes including houses, cars and three-wheel vehicles.

The awards are meant to celebrate the Ethiopian New Year, which took place on September 12, 2023.

To receive the prizes, users are asked to follow the group, like the post and share it in at least three different Facebook groups. They are also asked to submit their telephone numbers in the comment section.

The post has more than 120 comments, most of them telephone numbers.

However, the CBE is not carrying out any such prize giveaway.

Scam post

The post was published in a Facebook group called "Commercial Bank of Ethiopia", which also features the logo of the CBE. It was created three months ago and has 2,400 members.

AFP Fact check has reviewed all of the CBE’s official media platforms (here, here and here), where the bank usually makes promotional announcements, and found no prize giveaways to mark the 2023 Ethiopian new year.

The bank has repeatedly warned its customers about social media scammers using its name and logo (archived here).

"There are fraudsters who steal money from customers' accounts by spreading various fake information through fake social networking sites that use the name and logo of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia," the CBE said in June (archived here)

The CBE shared a list of all of its official Facebook accounts in various languages. These are all Facebook pages; none of them are Facebook groups, like in the misleading post.

Screenshot of the CBE customers scam warning message, taken on September 11, 2023

The bank has also warned customers that fraudsters may send text messages or make phone calls pretending to be CBE employees in order to gain access to accounts (archived here).

AFP Fact Check previously debunked similar scam posts in Ethiopia here and here.

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