Claim: UNICEF is offering money to survey participants

Source: Viral message

Verdict: HOAX

Researched by Sedem Kwasigah

A viral WhatsApp message supposedly coming from UNICEF is offering a reward of GH¢ 9,368 to survey participants.

A screenshot of the viral WhatsApp message

The viral message with a phishing link, when opened takes participants to a homepage with the UNICEF logo and the inscription “Latin America and the Caribbean” boldly written at the top, hinting it is a UNICEF website serving that region.

But the viral message is a HOAX.

A screenshot of the homepage when you attempt to access the phishing link

Our checks showed that participants were tested on their knowledge of UNICEF and its programmes. Then participants are requested to share their bio-data including their age range and sex.

A screengrab of one of the pages when you access the phishing link

After answering questions on 4 different pages, another opens up and directs participants to tick a box for the reward following which a congratulatory message pops up. Then participants are requested to share the phishing link with 20 friends to complete the registration to receive the gift within seven (7) days.

A screenshot of a page when you click on the phishing link

Who is UNICEF?

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is a United Nations programme dedicated to defending the rights and promoting the interests of children globally.

It collaborates with member states to create an enabling environment for children in areas such as education, health, and nutrition, with its headquarters in New York, United States.

Administratively, UNICEF operates from seven different regional offices, each with its own website. These include East Asia and the Pacific, Eastern and Southern Africa, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and West and Central Africa.

Fact-check

A search to find out who owns the domain – fortunemania.buzz – via WHOIS  shows that the registrar data has been made private but registered in Arizona in the United States of America.

WHOIS information also shows that the phishing link was registered on March 30, 2023, updated on April 4, 2023, and is due to expire on March 30, 2024, which raises some suspicion since it is connected to UNICEF.

A screenshot of the Whois information about the domain name

The lookup also revealed that the operators behind the website hired the service of privacyguardian.org, an organisation that protects registrant information by buying and registering domain names on behalf of its customers.

Also, GhanaFact ran the link on virustotal.com, a website that scans documents and links for malware or cyber threats. The scan found that nine (9) security vendors flagged the link as malicious.

Furthermore, a visual examination of the actual website of UNICEF shows a URL (www.unicef.org/lac/en) that displayed a different homepage and did not advertise an application for a grant, as seen on the homepage of the site under investigation.

Here is the WHOIS information about the UNICEF website.

 

Verdict

Therefore, the WhatsApp link claiming that UNICEF is giving out cash is HOAX.