Safaricom has today suspended the M-Pesa PayBill number 135079 being used by the controversial Public Likes scam.
The scam which operates like the Social Trade scam in India, has been the talk of the town with most users confessing how they were either promised money or making some.
Sources at Safaricom have indicated that they discontinued all incoming and outgoing transactions on the account until their internal investigations reveal what really happened on the line.
But don’t we know that ponzi or pyramid scammers always lure their victims by having the initial adopters make money before shutting down the whole operation without announcement at some stage.
How the Scam Operated
The scam ran its course and it did pay off for some people until it didn’t. It is an online paying job where one is Paid To Click (PTC). Upgrading one’s account ensured more Adverts to Click on. The cheapest account upgrade is Ksh 4,500 then Ksh 14,000, and the mother of all account upgrades is the Ksh 90,000.
The scam paid off even more once an upgraded account recruited other people and got them to upgrade their accounts. It is safe to say that it slowly became a pyramid scheme that has conned unsuspecting Kenyans.
According to a user, money withdrawals had to be made in the wee hours of the morning with some requests taking days to be approved. Apparently, the least amount of money one could withdrawal was 5,000.
An upgraded account also had an expiry date meaning that should your account expire before reaching the minimum account balance, then there was no way of accessing your money without another account upgrade.
Public Likes recently introduced a bank withdrawal option, excuse being Mpesa withdrawals had limits and were too many.
Some users have had difficulties withdrawing their money for close to two weeks now.
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