Scammers pose as Jumia, organise pseudo recruitment to defraud people

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Sunday Awosoro

Claim: Jumia is actively seeking new employees.

Verdict: False. Our investigation uncovered that Jumia is presently not in the process of hiring new staff. The circulating advertisements do not have any affiliation with the company.

Full Text

Jumia is an e-commerce firm that connects customers with businesses. From selling appliances to food and fashion items, it is described as the largest online shopping website in Nigeria.

In recent times, DUBAWA has noticed the spread of Facebook banners indicating that Jumia is recruiting individuals for various job roles. For instance, one advertised part-time positions that could be performed using smartphones, while another highlighted the opportunity for a “Junior Treasury Assistant” position. In addition, we have also come across a promotion for an “Advertising Operations Associate” role, as well as one for the position of a “Last Mile Manager.” Each of these promised enticing salaries.

Because of the country’s economic status, Nigerians seek ways to earn more daily, especially through online jobs. For this reason, these adverts have received increasing engagement from Facebook users.

Due to the high level of interest expressed and the likely risk these users could face, we decided to verify if Jumia is truly seeking new employees.

Verification

After clicking on one of the links, DUBAWA was asked to provide a name and phone number. We did and were redirected to a WhatsApp account owned by one ”Oha Onyiyechi Gift.”  After a brief chat, she provided a cloned website of Konga, another e-commerce platform in Nigeria. Instead of having www.konga.com, a letter “k” was added to form “kongak.” DUBAWA archived this replica website here.

As instructed, we registered an account and performed demo purchases five times. For each of these purchases, commissions were earned leaving us with a balance of N310. To however earn more and “cash out big,”  she asked that we upgrade from a demo to a real account. 

Miss Gift said for VIP 1, we have to pay a sum of N1,000. But for VIP 2 and 3, the costs are N5,000 and N15,000 respectively, noting that the higher the account-type, the bigger one’s commission.

We pushed further, asking her to provide a payment method. She gave us more instructions, making us arrive  at a page that carried a Palmpay account owned by “Patricia Olorih” with the account number “9551000998.”

If we pay, she promised that our commissions would be automatically sent back into the account number we provide.

The advert began with Jumia. Unannounced, the conversation switched into “Kongak,” and  were asked to pay into an account whose name was different from the person we chatted with. 

Interestingly, the links in the remaining advertisements directed us to individuals who employed the same format we initially encountered. Could that be an organised form of fraud?

Having recognised these red flags, we proceeded to the official Facebook page of Jumia. We scrolled through and found a recent disclaimer that warned the public about suspicious job adverts in the company’s name. The company denounced the adverts and asked the public to disregard them.

This was released on 8th of June, 2023. Furthermore, we sent a private message to Jumia but did not get a response as at the time of this factcheck.

Conclusion

Our findings have revealed that Jumia is currently not recruiting new staff. The advertisements going round do not originate from the company.