Online Reporter
YESTERDAY we revealed that there is an army of con artists who are masquerading as H-Metro journalists.
They have been terrorising people, including a legislator, and demanding payments claiming this is meant to ensure they don’t publish sensational stories of those targeted individuals.
This dirty network appears to be well organised and they are ripping people of their hard-earned cash.
Last week, an MP, who represents a Harare constituency, became the latest target of this group. The fake reporter approached the legislator and introduced himself as a member of the H-Metro team of journalists.
He claimed that he had explosive details of the MP’s extramarital love affair with an unnamed woman.
The fake reporter claimed that the details were so graphic that in the event that they were published, the MP would not only have his name shamed but there would be such a public outcry that he was likely to lose his seat as a parliamentarian.
However, the fake reporter told the MP that he would ensure the story would not be published if the legislator paid a certain amount of money.
The MP was told publication of the story would be stopped if he paid US$500.What we know is that this is not an isolated case.
There are many bogus H-Metro reporters out there and it appears they have now taken steroids because they have taken their game to a whole new level.
We keep getting all these stories of people who are saying they were contacted by H-Metro reporters whose names don’t exist among those who are employed by this newspaper.
For us, what is quite worrying is that our brand name is being tarnished by these people and they are also robbing people of their money.
Four years ago, H-Metro exposed a fake journalist who was going around pretending to be a newspaper reporter from this stable and demanding money from people and threatening to expose them in the newspaper.
Recently, a woman, who is using the mobile number 0787290489, and calls herself Nancy, has been masquerading as an H-Metro reporter.
She has been terrorising a Harare businessman who she claims impregnated his girlfriend and then dumped her.
H-Metro has been given some of the chats between Nancy and the businessman.
There is no question that these bogus individuals have damaged our brand as H-Metro.
We hope that by exposing them, and their fraudulent acts, we are sending a powerful message to these crooks that their actions are being monitored.
We hope that we are also helping the ordinary man and woman around the country understand that there is a need to verify everyone who calls them, claiming that he or she is from H-Metro.
This is quite simple and one way of doing that is to ask those callers to prove that they are, indeed, from this newspaper by sending copies of their official media accreditation. In today’s world, where communication is easier through WhatsApp, the reporters can send copies of their media accreditation cards to prove that they are, indeed, from H-Metro.
