Job seekers in Africa easy prey for online scammers

A researcher browses an Internet site with a job offer for a United Nations agency that has been flagged as a scam in Nairobi on June 30, 2022. A report by Code for Africa revealed that in 2020 – when job losses soared during the Covid-19 pandemic – 33 scam recruitment Facebook accounts, groups and pages with more than 184,000 followers targeted people in Kenya, requiring them to send about 350 Kenyan shillings (US$3) before placements that never materialised. — AFP

NAIROBI: From careers in banking to roles in globe-spanning agencies, social media in Africa is awash with lucrative job offers.

But investigators with AFP Fact Check have found that many of these ads are bogus – they are scams designed to extract cash or steal personal data.