Immaculate Akhigbe, an Ondo State-based corps member, has narrated how a fake Paga Facebook page defrauded her of N40,000.
Akhigbe told FIJ that the incident happened on March 23.
“When I came across the page on Facebook, I was told they were doing a PoS deployment promo. When I further chatted with the number they made available on WhatsApp, I was told to go and create a Paga account on my own before a PoS acquisition,” Akhigbe said.
“They said that they would dispatch a PoS terminal to me for free once the account was opened. After creating the account and inputting all my details, including a valid means of identification, I funded it with N40,000.”
Akhigbe said she was further instructed via a WhatsApp chat that the terminal that would be assigned to her was being configured.
“I was further told that while the configuration was being done, I would be sent a code via SMS,” Immaculate said.
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“The man that spoke to me then said I should forward the code to him after receiving it. All through this period, I never had any cause to suspect that I was dealing with a fraudster.
“After receiving the message, I forwarded it to him. If I had known that what I had received was an OTP for my account, I would not have forwarded it to him.
“Immediately he received the OTP, he called me to say I should not attempt logging in to my Paga account so I wouldn’t disrupt the configuration.”
Akhigbe said she became suspicious at this point.
“Afterwards, I tried logging in to my Paga account multiple times but I could not,” she said.
“I later received a message from Paga that my account had been blocked temporarily for 30 mins.



“When I eventually was able to log in, I discovered that my N40,000 had disappeared from the account. I never knew I was dealing with a fraudster. Now, the little money I was able to save as a corps member has disappeared.

“This is really saddening. My intention was to use the PoS business to empower myself. Now, my savings are all gone.”


FIJ learned that the N40,000 that was stolen from Akhigbe’s account was transferred to an OPay account belonging to one Mary Owojokun Sunday.

The fraudster also used the phone numbers 09117099479 and 07012554275 in defrauding the corps member. Both numbers showed the names ‘Paga Tech’ and ‘Paga Finance’ respectively on Truecaller.
FIJ called both numbers on several occasions on Tuesday, but they were not answered. A WhatsApp message sent to the number 07012554275 was not responded to, but FIJ found that the number was active on WhatsApp till 12:49 pm on Wednesday afternoon.
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