The website is not the legitimate site of United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, and the UN agency has disowned it.
syndicated by PesaCheck
This website link on Facebook supposedly belonging to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and offering government subsidies is a HOAX.
The website instructs users to fill out a questionnaire for a chance to get KSh107,736. The questionnaire has four questions on whether the user knows UNICEF, their age, gender, and their opinion of the UN agency.
After responding to the survey, a new message pops up informing users that their answers have been successfully ‘saved’.
Further instructions require users to select among the provided UNICEF-branded boxes where their subsidies are disclosed. “You have 3 attempts. Good Luck!” adds the message.
Once the user selects the box containing the giveaways, a congratulatory message appears with further instructions on how to redeem the UNICEF subsidy.
“You must tell 5 groups or 20 friends about the promotions,” the first instruction reads. The second instruction requires the user to key in their email address and complete the registration.
Accepting the terms and conditions opens up yet another message with further instructions on how to receive the subsidy. To share the information about the subsidy as instructed, the user must click on the provided WhatsApp icon.
The next step requires the user to click on the “continue” button to get the subsidy. This sequence mirrors many phishing scams modelled as promotional giveaways whose sole purpose is mining personal information.
There is no information about the subsidies on either of the UNICEF website, its Facebook page, or Instagram and Twitter accounts.
The domain name of the website is buzzwinners.buzz, which is not the legitimate domain of the UNICEF website — unicef.org.
The WHOIS information on the imposter website shows that the website was registered on 1 March 2023. The domain is also registered in Arizona, one of the USA states.
Besides, the WHOIS information about the legitimate UNICEF website shows that it was registered on 10 March 1993 in New York, another USA state.
On 17 August 2023, UNICEF cautioned the public against clicking on any suspicious links shared online. The caution was posted on X, a social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“UNICEF isn’t running any competitions with prize money,” the post read.
PesaCheck has examined the website claiming to belong to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and offering government subsidies and found it to be a HOAX.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck senior fact-checker Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
