IMPOSTER: A Facebook page offering loans to students does not belong to HELB
Written by Evance Adede on February 16, 2023
A Facebook page offering The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) loans to students is an IMPOSTER page.
The Facebook page bears the username The Higher Education Loans Board Page and has more than 700 followers. The page claims to be that of the official HELB body which offers education loans to university and college students. It has been circulating posts on how to access loans and when the loans will be disbursed.
In one of the posts dated 2nd February 2023, the page claimed that HELB was working on the loans and some applicants would get the loans in their accounts the same day.
They also promised to get back to the applicants once they were done since they were in the final stages of processing the loans.
Screenshots of posts made on the page allegedly giving hopes to applicants of the loan.
However, upon scrutiny of the page, we found out that the page is an IMPOSTER since it was neither verified nor connected to HELB’s verified twitter handle raising a red flag.
Through their verified Twitter handle, the body flagged the page we are fact-checking as fake.
A screenshot of a tweet on HELB’s verified Twitter account flagging the Facebook page we are fact-checking as fake.
Through the tweet, they warned the public of fake HELB Pages and added that they only communicate trough their verified social media platforms on Facebook and Twitter.
Screenshots of HELB official Facebook and Twitter pages.
Though HELB’s Facebook page is not verified, the education loans body provided a link to their official Facebook page on their verified Twitter account.
HELB has also shared similar posts on their Twitter account and Facebook page. For example, a tweet shared on their verified Twitter handle on 10th February 2023 warning the public of the imposter pages also appears on the same Facebook page the same day and time with the same content.
Screenshots of a linked post between the two platforms.
We would, therefore, wish to confirm that the above page is an IMPOSTER page created to mislead the public and give false hopes.
This fact check was published by Sky Fm with support from Code For Africa’s PesaCheck and African Fact-Checking Alliance.
