24 year old Anathi Mseleni, a self-taught programmer, has developed ScamProof, an app to help South African youth detect bogus colleges and fake job advertisements that are flooding online platforms these days.
Not a day passes without South African youth, desperate for opportunities to add value to their lives, agonisingly losing tens of thousands after registering at bogus colleges and falling for job scams. This is due to lack of awareness to tell the real from the fake amongst advertisements flooding social media platforms these days. All the more serious, peddlers of scams are so good at branding their services that it is not uncommon for even the most perceptive to fall victim.
Hopefully, this is about to change. A young South African man, seriously concerned about the chronic problem of people falling for bogus advertisements, has developed ScamProof, an app for people to detect scams and help youth falling into the hands of human traffickers who lure their victims through legitimate-looking job advertisements.
Anathi Mseleni (24), from Diepsloot in Gauteng, says he was fascinated by how technology was used to solve social problems and decided to develop an app to enable South African youth apply for legitimate jobs and colleges. “People are scammed of their money or kidnapped by people who advertise fake jobs. I wanted to build a platform where they can report scams and make others aware of them.”
Users can report scams from across the country and check if tertiary institutions are registered. They can search a company’s name, address, email address or contact number, and the app will display results if the company has already been flagged as a scam.
Mseleni notifies potential users though that not all scams have been reported on the app, but more will appear as they are reported by members of the public.
“The app is free to use and open for the public to comment on. I cover all of the operational costs. No one is hired to report scams, the app uses information from the public,” says Mseleni.
Mseleni urges companies across the country to register as safe zones on ScamProof. In addition, when women do not feel safe, they can go to these premises and will be able to get directions to the safe zone from the app.
It is hard to resist the urge to find out how Mseleni ventured into the world of programming.
Mseleni taught himself programming, through a fascination and passion for solving problems and coming up with ideas. “I started learning how to code in 2016, when I was 19. I was passionate about coding and taught myself using books, YouTube videos and online coding forums,” he reminisces.
ScamProof app is available on the Google Play Store for download.
Credits: Information sourced from an article publised by Vukunzelele and adapted for Transform SA Oline
