Beware! Scammers promising to upgrade daily EcoCash account limits

The RBZ recently placed stricter regulations on mobile money service providers. You may have heard that you can no longer transact over ZW$5000 daily.

Interestingly, we came across a WhatsApp message that we believe is a scam. It claims that you can actually upgrade your EcoCash account and once you have done so you’ll be able to transact above the limit!

You can read the message below;

URGENT NOTICE

IMPORTANT NOTICE

ALL THOSE WITH AGENT LINES, MERCHANT LINES THAT WHERE SUSPENDED WITH FUNDS AND WANT THEM TO BE MOVED TO THEIR ECOCASH ACCOUNTS OR BANK ACCOUNTS PLEASE CONTACT THE NUMBER BELOW AND GET YOUR MONEY BEFORE IT LOSES VALUE.

PROCESS IS DONE IN LESS THAN 30 TO 45 MINS

ECOCASH HAS GAZZETED THAT ALL INDIVIDUALS ARE TO TRANSACT 5000 PER DAY ONLY BUT IF YOU WANT TO UPGRADE TO ECONET EXECUTIVE MEMBER AND TRANSACT UP TO 50000 RTGS PER DAY MAXIMUM LIMIT CONTACT THE FOLLOWING NUMBER FOR UPGRADE

N.B FOR ALL ECOCASH QUERIES, REVERSALS, HANGING TRANSACTION CONTACT NUMBER ASWELL

So why is this a scam. Well first of all, EcoCash doesn’t make official pronouncement via WhatsApp. That right there is the biggest red flag.

Secondly, there are number of spelling mistakes, along with statements that make no sense. This suggests this wasn’t written by any PR person or someone fully aware of what is happening;

• ALL THOSE WITH AGENT LINES, MERCHANT LINES THAT WHERE SUSPENDED – Where instead of were;
• ALL THOSE WITH AGENT LINES, MERCHANT LINES THAT WHERE SUSPENDED WITH FUNDS AND WANT THEM TO BE MOVED TO THEIR ECOCASH ACCOUNTS – RBZ said money in suspended agent lines would be moved to bank accounts and not EcoCash accounts as claimed here;
• ECOCASH HAS GAZZETED THAT ALL INDIVIDUALS ARE TO TRANSACT 5000 PER DAY – This wasn’t “gazetted” by EcoCash but by RBZ actually;
• IF YOU WANT TO UPGRADE TO ECONET EXECUTIVE MEMBER AND TRANSACT UP TO 50000 RTGS PER DAY MAXIMUM LIMIT CONTACT THE FOLLOWING NUMBER FOR UPGRADE – Econet and EcoCash are now separate entities and thus official EcoCash communications wouldn’t conflate the two

Anyway the greater point is this ticks the box on what seems like a scam and even if you’re desperate to get your money out of a suspended agent line – this is the worst route to take.