Last Friday, The Deeper Christian Life Ministry in a public announcement drew attention to the existence of a scammer/ impostor on Facebook and other social media platforms masquerading as, and impersonating Pastor F. Kumuyi, the General Superintendent of the ministry.
The impostor reportedly plies his scam with the name ‘William Kumuyi’ and feeds unsuspecting members of the public with fake revelations and prophecies. In return, the scammer asks them to contact an orphanage on mobile phone number 09036165941.
For the avoidance of doubt, the ministry said it does not operate orphanages or call for public donations via Facebook or any other social media and warned the public to avoid being scammed.
The scammer in question is one of the many others on social media who are exploiting the use of the platforms to dupe people. Instead of using the platforms for what they are meant for: social and professional networking, information dissemination and gathering, the scammers have perfected the act of using fake identities of particularly prominent persons and organisations.
The situation is so bad that one needs to be knowledgeable about the social media to ascertain a genuine or verified account on the platforms. Because of the large following and reputation of religious leaders like Pastor Kumuyi, the scammers have various accounts in their names through which they send friends requests on Facebook and follow people on Twitter.
It is therefore easy for innocent persons, desperate for interaction of any kind with religious leaders and other prominent persons, to be duped when they can’t differentiate between the genuine and fake accounts.
Many other organisations like the Custom Services have social media accounts with false information on sales of impounded cars which many people have fallen for. While researching a presentation on the use of social media by some government organisations, I found many social media accounts bearing names of organisations that knew nothing about the platforms they were supposed to own.
If the scammer like in this case of Pastor Kumuyi has a phone number through which he is being contacted and bank account for payment for his ‘ministrations,’ the police, working with the telecommunication companies and banks, should be able to arrest the culprits to serve as a deterrent to others.
New media literacy for all should be encouraged and more awareness created about the fraudulent activities of the scammers. People need to know how to confirm if a social media account is verified or is the right one. They need to know how to check the history of an account and not fall for fake ones created by fraudsters. When people suddenly get unusual requests from friends, they need to double check that it is not from impersonators who hack accounts.
Staying away from the social media is not the solution to avoiding being impersonated as some think. The social media has become an unavoidable means of communication that every person or organisation should be active on to avoid being misrepresented.
Those who have stayed away from social media have had accounts created for them and their images used to defraud other users. A top personality recently threatened to quit Facebook due to fraudsters who have fake accounts in his name.
My simple advice to him was “if we don’t know the original, how do we know the fake?”
The advantages of being on the social media far outweigh the risk of being on the platforms. Fraudsters will always want to have their way like in virtually every human endeavour, but everything possible should be done individually and collectively to stop them.
A Yoruba proverb sums up my position on the importance of the social media. “If you close your eyes for a bad person to pass by, you may not know when a good person will”.
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