Kenya Railways warns of fraudsters targeting unsuspecting customers

The Kenya Railways Corporation has warned the public against unscrupulous fraudsters intending to swindle unsuspecting customers of their hard-earned money.

These individuals who masquerade as Kenya Railways staff call and send messages requesting personal details in order to facilitate cancellations and process refunds of already purchased tickets.

“We are aware of phone calls, text messages and social media posts from third parties posing as Kenya Railways staff, whose intention is to defraud our passengers,” Kenya Railways said.

“If you are a victim of this suspicious activity, please do not comply with the fraudsters' request to share your personal information.”

The company warned that they never ask for such personal details or ask for bank details.

“Kenya Railways would never ask for your bank details, or Personal Identification numbers to your M-pesa or social media accounts, in order to facilitate cancellations and refunds of already purchased tickets,” Kenya Railways said.

Kenya Railways was responding to a fraud alert that was raised by a concerned customer identified as Eunice Kilonzo-Muraya who almost walked into a con game by someone running a cloned Kenya Railways Twitter account.

Apparently, Eunice booked two tickets but did not receive a confirmation text, prompting her to inquire about th sesame through the available channels.

"Earlier today I paid for two SGR tickets but didn’t get the SMS with the ticket details. Gave it a few minutes, emailed & called the lines listed on @KenyaRailways_ but all were unresponsive. I clicked their Twitter icon at the bottom and it led me to this account in the pic," Eunice said.

However, only when someone else who had a similar problem got a response from another 'Kenya Railways' account that Eunice got suspicious after engaging the account, which asked her for her contacts.

"And I think this is where I walked into the con game. Someone else had asked about the delay in getting the SMS. They got a response from an account that shows @KenyaRailways_ only to later found out, it was fake. It was these guys in the pic. I ASSUMED it was the legit account," Eunice said.

"I responded on that thread that I also had the same issue and I’d sent a DM."

"I didn’t click on this responding account to confirm I was talking to the genuine @KenyaRailways_ until an hour later when I got a DM from the fake page asking for my ‘reachable number."

Much to Eunice's surprise, this new account did not have the details she had earlier shared with Kenya Railways and that is when it dawned on her that someone was about to scam her.

"This new DM didn’t have any of the info I shared earlier," she wrote.

"Then I clicked on the account and I got a little confused because it looked so similar BUT I would find out, were very different. Placing the two accounts side by side."