A fake Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) website has been promising phone users in Nigeria that it would help them unbar their lines, if all the instructions it has laid out are followed.
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It was stated on the site that users’ lines would be unbarred without a need for them to provide their National Identification Numbers (NIN).
To get people to click on a link that would redirect Nigerians to the site, a broadcast message is now in circulation.
“If your sim is among the 72 million sim banned by NCC you are a step closer to unbarring your sim here,” the broadcast message reads.
“Hurry now and unbar yours, I just unban 3 of my sims free [sic], don’t be stingy forward to other friends and groups.”
The message carries three links that have been provided for three networks – MTN, Airtel, Glo/Smile.
However, these links lead to the same place – a badly designed website that is hosted on the free blogspot plan. It also only just has a space provided for phone number input.
After phone numbers are submitted, an instruction on the site asks users to distribute the link to 12 new groups and friends.
‘Testimony section’
An ‘interesting’ part of the website is the comments section. It not only displays the number of likes by people but also the various testimonies made by some of them.
However, this are unclickable screenshots pieced together to confuse people. No matter the number of times a user visits the site in a day, the time and number of comments in this section remain the same.
