Several prominent Eastern Cape businessmen have discovered their social media pictures and profiles are being used without their permission to lure unsuspecting people into apparent forex trading.
East London nightclub owner Olwethu Hoyana, who runs OHBrigado Champagne Bar in Beacon Bay, was caught by surprise at the weekend when he received calls and text messages from close friends notifying him of the alleged scam.
Hoyana told the Daily Dispatch that he was surprised and angered when it was brought to his attention that his picture was being circulated under someone else’s name on Facebook, with that person texting his close friends and trying to coax them into forex trading.
Hoyana, a former MetroFM marketing manager who has owned successful upmarket nightclubs around East London and Johannesburg for several years, plans to file a complaint with the police.
“I have already reported it to Facebook authorities and I’m awaiting their response.
“This was brought to my attention by a friend who told me that he was invited on Facebook by someone using my picture and who later tried to lure him into joining forex trading.
“When I checked this person on social media, I discovered he had quite a number of profiles with different pictures in them, hence it seemed to me that they might be up to no good,” Hoyana said.
East London-based construction mogul Siyabulela Moko, who owns Express Builders, and businessman Magesh Mvandaba were also not spared.
Their pictures appear on several social media platforms – under different names – as forex and bitcoin traders. Mvandaba, who has been a victim on more than seven occasions, said he had been approached by people in Johannesburg and Cape Town inquiring about their forex and bitcoin deals having gone wrong.
“I am not even on Facebook, but you will find profiles there with pictures of myself and my family, placing my family at risk of being ridiculed for scamming unsuspecting people. “For the past four months, there have been seven profiles of people using my pictures in such a scam. It gives me concerns about safety because these people take money from unsuspecting people,” he said.
He said he had met a woman at OR Tambo International Airport who had asked him why he had not told her he was in Gauteng, as he had promised to do, to discuss forex and bitcoin trading.
“It is such a worrying concern, really, because I know nothing about forex or how it operates.
“In one incident, my friends were inboxed and told that I had a truck held up in Mozambique and that they should deposit R40,000 to assist me to release the truck,” he said.
Moko said it was not the first time it had happened to him and he feared one day he might be attacked by people who believed he had scammed them.
He may also file a complaint with the police.
Arthur Goldstuck, managing director at World Wide Worx and telecommunications expert, said fake accounts could be reported to social media sites.
“Most of these sites are under fire for not doing enough to protect the identities and profiles of their users.
“They are now making it a priority to deal with complaints of fake profiles.”
Goldstuck advised victims of identity theft and fraud to report it to the police, who could trace culprits through their cyber crime unit...