Recently, a campaign link titled ‘Students Laptop Scheme 2023’ has been spreading on social media and messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Messenger. The campaign promises to provide more than 960,000 free laptops to students in 2023.

The viral campaign message is as follows:

“The Applications for the Students Laptop Scheme 2023 Is Available

This scheme is open to all students who for financial reasons are not in a position to purchase a laptop of their own and are in need of laptop in their level of education.

In 2023 Over 960,000 students will be given free laptop to enhance their learning

Application has began and students that have applied have started getting their laptops

https://tl.ke/Student-FREE-LAPTOPS”
The campaign link can be found here, and the archived of the campaign can be found here.

Fact Check

According to the Rumor Scanner’s investigation, the campaign to provide free laptops to students is not genuine but is being run with the intention of cheating.

Navigating through the campaign steps

Free laptops are being offered to students through the campaign link. According to the website, to be eligible for a free laptop, the student must be between the ages of 10 to 50 and able to read and write. The very first step requires filling out a form with the applicant’s full name, educational level, preferred laptop brand name, and age range.

After filling out the form, an application acceptance message will appear, prompting the applicant to proceed to the next step in order to confirm eligibility to receive the Students Support Laptop.
After a short wait, the applicant is taken to another page where they are prompted to validate their name and select the purpose of the laptop. Once the required information is provided, the applicant needs to press the ‘Request’ button.

After a short wait, a congratulatory message appears indicating that the applicant has been approved to receive the ‘Students Support Laptop’ after their application has been reviewed. However, the process does not end here. The applicant is then required to share a message with 15 friends or 5 WhatsApp groups. After completing this task, the campaign claims that the applicant will receive a confirmation SMS within 15 minutes.

After sharing the message, the applicant is redirected to another page that displays enticing offers of getting iPhones, iPads and other gifts. The page requests the applicant to send SMS, download, enter phone number, answer a survey, install an app, or any other given task to verify their phone number. Once completed, there is a ‘Verify Now’ button to click.
After clicking that button, a new page appears suggesting that by completing this final step, the applicant might win anything from iPhones to iPads and other gifts. The page also displays ‘Verify Now’ and ‘SMS Verification’ buttons. However, clicking these links takes the applicant to some spam links.

Screenshot collage of the campaign’s steps.

(Note: We recommend our readers to follow safety tips while browsing online and have updated antivirus and firewall software installed on their devices to protect against malicious attempts. We proceeded to the malicious website only to understand and warn our readers about the scam. We strongly advise not to proceed any further.)

Investigating the Campaign Website

Rumor Scanner team has conducted a thorough review of the said website and discovered several anomalies. Firstly, the website does not seem to be affiliated with any reputable organization, and there is no clear information on who is providing the free laptops. Additionally, the website appears to be unprofessional in its design and layout, which raises suspicions about its legitimacy.

The second phase of the campaign features a statistic indicating the number of individuals who have allegedly taken advantage of the offer, which initially begins at 57532 and continues to increase. However, upon revisiting the previous step of the campaign and returning to this stage, the statistic resets to 57532, revealing that it is fabricated and likely intended to create a false sense of urgency and encourage individuals to take part in the campaign.

It appears that there is a discrepancy between the initial claim made on the website regarding the free laptops being offered exclusively to students, and the options provided in a later step where individuals can select “business” or “other” purposes for their laptop. This raises questions about the true intention of the campaign.

The website has some reviews from people who claim to have received free laptops. But when we tried to leave a comment, we found out that the comment feature doesn’t work. This suggests that the reviews might be fake and are only there to make the website seem real.

Additionally, there are several other discrepancies and inconsistencies present on the campaign website.

Motives behind these false campaigns

The motives behind these false campaigns can vary. In some cases, scammers may be attempting to collect personal information from unsuspecting victims, such as email addresses, phone numbers, or even banking information. Other times, these campaigns may be attempting to spread malware or other malicious software to infect the devices of those who engage with the campaign. Additionally, some false campaigns may simply be attempting to generate traffic to a website or social media account for financial gain.

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Bottom Line

Recently, a campaign link has been circulating on social media claiming to offer free laptops to students. When someone clicks on the link, they are prompted to complete various steps, such as filling out personal information. In the final step, the user is asked to send the same giveaway message to 15 people or 5 WhatsApp groups in order to receive the laptop. However, after completing that step, the user is told to click some links which are redirected to spam and survey links.

Hence, the campaign of giving free laptops to students which is spreading on social media is completely fake.