Kenya Women Microfinance Bank, or also known as Kenya Women Finance Trust or KWFT, is a deposit-taking microfinance bank in Kenya, Africa.
As one of the largest deposit-taking microfinance bank in the country, KWFT has indeed carved its name to fame to many people in Kenya. And malicious actors are piggybacking its name to commit fraud to the millions of potential victims through advertisements on Facebook.
And the social media seems to struggle with it.
According to a report from BuzzFeed News, the malicious actors created sponsored posts on Facebook from a page called KWFT Loans Kenya, which features the logo for the Kenya Women Microfinance Bank.
Through the page, the malicious actors offer unsecured loads delivered through mobile phones, with annual interest of 9%, far lower than the usual personal bank loans in Kenya, which range from 13% to 20%.
Convinced victims should then fill in details about themselves, including name, ID number, and unique ID for official activities like registering their SIM cards, opening bank accounts, and obtaining government services. Later, the scammers contact the victims to confirm their identity by stating date of birth, the latest mobile money transactions, and SIM card’s PIN.
The scam is then complete.
A KWFT spokesperson confirmed that it was a scam, saying that the Facebook Page didn’t belong to the bank and that it had been warning the public about fake Pages using its name.
KWFT does offer loans to its customers, but its services are only offered through its main app, and also on mobile phones through USSD.
What's more, KWFT does not require payment upfront, nor need customers to give them the access to process the loans that it gives.
A Facebook spokesperson in Kenya addresses the concerns by saying that the company invests heavily to tackle scams and malicious actors.
“We’re putting significant resources towards tackling these kinds of ads,” they said a statement.
“It’s important to us that ads on Facebook are useful to people and not used to promote deceptive behavior, like using images of public figures and organizations to mislead people. We remove pages that violate our advertising policies.”
But still, with the many people commenting on the fraudsters' Pages saying that they are scammers, the Pages are still accessible.
Scams like this is common in Kenya, where many of its people are using Facebook. With many Kenyans are already struggling financially, scammers are making use of the situation to rip them off.
An investigation by BuzzFeed News has identified at least 52 scam loan and recruitment Facebook Pages with more than 245,000 followers, targeting people in Kenya.
Some were created as early as 2017, with some as early as August 2020.
The scam pages falsely claim to belong to well-known banks, supermarkets, gas stations, and other companies known to give loans or recruit large numbers of people.
In 2019, Kenyans have been urged to avoid making online transactions with unknown people or organizations. This followed an increase in reported cases of online frauds, said Kenya's Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).
”We wish to caution members of the public against engaging in online transactions with companies, agencies and/or individuals they have no credible information about, to avoid,” the statement reads.
The DCI urged those who may have fell to online scams and/or lost their documents to report to the police immediately.
