By Tosin Adesile
One of the advantages of this internet age is e-commerce, which serves as an avenue to connect service providers/sellers with buyers/clients without having them meet in the physical location of an office. This is an ever-growing initiative that has birthed many businesses, allowing them to operate without necessarily having a physical location, the seller and buyer would just transmit their business online.
This is a great development, but sadly, it has its drawbacks, a major one being that it makes it easier for scammers and fraudsters to impersonate reputable companies with the aim of defrauding innocent people who might believe they were actually having a business transaction with the original company. On the 11th of April, I was having a discussion with members of my extended family on the newly increased electricity tariff and they were of the opinion that people should switch to solar and expect less of electricity supply. As i agreed with that submission, a Facebook advert of Sun-king Solar System Nigeria popped up and I saw a popular picture of the reigning Sun King Solar.
Immediately, I sent a message to make further enquiry on how to purchase one of their packages called Home400 with standing fan. In the response the Facebook direct message gave me was a total amount of 74,200 naira with a deposit of 25,000 naira while the rest would be paid on delivery. I felt that it was a really good deal and was immediately interested. While I was further checking other similar Facebook adverts that i saw, someone called me and claimed that he is working for solar king that I should pay the sum of 25,000 immediately to reserve the package i wanted before another person will take advantage. I told him I will discuss it with my family and get back to him. Few minutes later, he called me again and I began to worry about why he was the one trying to make me see reasons to buy, as i believed that it is the person that needs a product that should be in a hurry to take a decision.
After calling me the third time, i asked him to send the account details because I wanted to be sure it was the company’s account. He forwarded me a Palmpay account with name Nenpin Philemon account number 8922…..* and asked me to send receipt. Immediately I found out it was not a company account, my suspicion about the legitimacy of the caller aroused even further. So I browsed Sun-king and i found out the name the scammer is using is ‘Sun-king Solar System Nigeria’, and it is fake. The original name of the company is ‘Sun King Power Hub’ and from their website and social media adverts, I found out that the legitimate solar company doesn’t collect a dime until their representatives comes to your house and installs the solar equipment.
Reading the comment section, a reader with name Gerald Udoka noted that any Sun King post that has a phone number attached is a scam and he advised people to run away from such. He further stated that Sun king does not advertise their numbers and they will never ask for deposit, they will bring the product to your house, install it and then ask for payment, after which they will give you a code to activate the product. Anyone asking for deposit or transportation fee is a big scammer, and you would be wise not go have any kind of dealings with such.
After another search, another facebook user who might have just been scammed posted that “You are paying into the account below NENPIN PHILEMON ,Account Number 8903……2,Bank:Palm pay ,a yahoo Yahoo boys and business.
After this comment, I looked for their legitimate page and I chatted with a customer care representative who sent me a list of their products and asked me to visit the nearest office or go to their website and fill a form, upon which i will be contacted. A further search on facebook found other fake pages masquerading as agents of Sun king with many people who had fallen for their deceit. I immediately blocked the fake agent of Sun King , to my surprise, he used another number to call me which I also blocked.
Before you pay next time for any good and services online, ensure you do due diligence before you pay. There are a lot of scammers and fraudulent people out there, impersonating reputable companies, and if you are not careful, and in too much of a hurry, you just might be their next victim, and of course, you know you would not be refunded. So, please, do your due diligence before sending out your hard earned money.