Impostor account falsely claims Ethiopian bank offering prizes to celebrate high profits

The post, written in Amharic, starts with: “Good news from Commercial Bank of Ethiopia. Don't miss it!”

The post was shared in a Facebook public group called “Commercial Bank of Ethiopia” with more than 45,000 members. Published on July 15, 2024, the post has been shared more than 6,000 times. 

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Screenshot of the false post, taken on July 17, 2024

“A new challenge to celebrate this year’s fiscal profit. We are pleased to announce that our company CBE has prepared many prizes for the lucky people who follow our page and engage in our company’s promotional activities,” the post claims. 

The financial year for Ethiopia’s state-owned enterprises ends on July 7. 

“This challenge will last until #August 12 and everyone who views this post will be rewarded if they share it with just 10 people,” it continues. 

The post contains a photo of CBE’s president, Abie Sano.

To win a prize, participants are also asked to enter their personal phone numbers in the comments section. The purported prizes include houses, cars, three-wheelers, motorcycles and tablets. 

Most of the users who interacted with the post left telephone numbers in the comments. 

A similar post was also published on this Facebook page. 

The CBE, which experienced a major system malfunction in March 2024 that allowed customers to withdraw amounts they did not have in their accounts, recently announced that it had achieved a significant increase in gross profit during the recently ended financial year (archived here). 

However, the claim that the bank is giving away prizes to celebrate its success this year is a hoax.

Increasing scams 

Scammers often try to solicit telephone numbers to request important personal information, including mobile banking details. 

At the end of June 2024, the CBE warned its customers about scammers pretending to call from the bank and asking for customers’ details to allegedly “fix the mobile banking service,” but in reality to steal from customers’ accounts (archived here). 

AFP Fact Check looked at the bank’s official social media accounts and website and found no trace of a profit-related giveaway. 

The CBE confirmed to AFP Fact Check that the bank does not run a Facebook group and is not offering the alleged prizes.

“Both the post as well as the page and many other similar fake accounts created using our name and logo are scams,” CBE said in an email. 

The bank confirmed its official Facebook accounts in Amharic (here), Afaan Oromoo (here), and Tigrigna (here). 

The bank’s official Amharic Facebook page has more than 680,000 followers and was created in 2014, whereas the impostor Facebook group was created in June 2023 and has 45,500 members. 

AFP Fact Check has previously debunked similar scam posts here, here and here.