How Fraudsters Took Advantage of My Absence on Social Media to Defraud My Fans - Actor Odunlade Adekola

 

Known for his almost flawless acting skills, Odunlade Adekola, who makes a living taking on the role of some fictional character, is not having the best of times as some fraudsters have decided to impersonate him and in the process swindle his fans of their hard earned money.

The Yoruba actor, who made this known in a recent interview, said ever since he quit social media about four years ago, internet fraudsters have cashed in on the situation to scam his teeming fans.

He said, "About four years ago, I deactivated my account on Facebook for personal reasons. Fraudsters seized the opportunity to scam my fans. They opened different accounts in my name and whenever an unsuspecting fan sends a message to those accounts, they tell the person that I am doing a promo. They ask the person questions about me and when the person gets the questions, they would then say that the person should pay between N7,500 and N8,500 into a certain account number for them to redeem their prizes. They say that the money is for them to bring the gift to the person. Sometimes they ask the person to call a certain number and they impersonate me. Some go to the extent of disguising their voice to sound like mine. They have been doing it for over four years and I have been receiving a lot of calls over this matter. It is quite embarrassing.

"At the moment, I am not on Facebook or any other social media. that I will join the social media community again and my fans would read it on this same platform. They should please beware of scammers using my name".

On why he deactivated his authentic Facebook account, the tall actor said it was based on personal reasons.

He, however, added "I believed that if anybody wanted to reach me for something important, they would know how to get to me. Anybody can reach me on Facebook, even primary school pupils but I wanted some space and privacy even though I understand that they are my fans and I love them. The discussions on Facebook and other social media could be unprofessional sometimes. That is why I have not been on any social media for over four years. There are other personal reasons I don't want to disclose but soon, I would join Facebook, twitter and instagram and people would know my name on them so that they would stop falling prey to these con artistes".