A 24-year old man from Homabay county committed suicide after Sh3000 in a fake Safaricom promotion. It is alleged that the Sh3000 that the late Dickson Otieno lost to the con men was his salary.
According to an article published by Standard Media, Otieno had earlier on received an SMS that indicated he had won Sh75,000.
He was then contacted by men posing as Safaricom customer care desk operators, instructing him to send Sh3000 as fees to facilitate the money that he had won. Otieno unfortunately fell for the deception and sent his entire month salary of Sh3000.
After he came to the realization of the fact that he was not going to get the Sh75,000 and therefore he had lost his salary for nothing, Otieno went back to his house and committed suicide.
“He was told by the caller to send the Sh3,000 as quickly as possible to enable him to process his Sh75,000 which he had allegedly won in a promotion,” one of the relatives stated.
The Area Assistant Chief Hesbon Asero confirmed the incident and cautioned the residents to be careful whenever they receive such calls. He urged them to report any similar occurrences of con men.
“There are scammers all over so people must be careful when handling calls from strangers. There is no way one would win in a promotion you never entered in the first place,” Asero noted.