The City of Cape Town’s Mayco member for Safety and Security JP Smith has been hacked.
Smith warned the public of a fake Facebook account in his name.
He posted on Facebook: “Please be aware of a fake profile that has been set up to duplicate this page. Please do not accept any requests from this fake “personal page”.
According to Smith, he is happy that the public assisted in identifying the bogus profile.
“I’m grateful to the public who identified it as fake and alerted me. They can help me by reporting it as fake so Facebook can take it down,” he says.
He tells Daily Voice that the fake account is an obvious attempt to draw people into some scam.
“No reason for people to suspect that the page is fake, but it is evident that it is attempting to draw people into some form of scam or dubious business activity and we have reported it to Facebook,” he explained.
The fictitious Facebook account has only made two posts, but nearly 180 000 people are following it.
Smith also cautioned residents against believing fake accounts.
“It is obviously annoying as it may succeed in scamming people out of their money and it causes me reputational harm.
“That is why we have publicly called it out as soon as we became aware of it.
“If you want to assist, click on the link below, on the fake profile click on ‘see options’, then click on ‘report’ and click on ‘fake profile’ as the option,” he advised.
byron.lukas@inl.co.za