FCCPC: We didn’t author message asking Nigerians to report traders ‘adding money’ to goods

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) says the WhatsApp message directing Nigerians to report traders ‘adding money’ to goods is not from the commission.

On April 17, a grammatical error, ‘adding money’, was spotted in the message circulated on the social messaging app.

Traders do not add money to their goods, rather, they increase the price of their goods.

Addressing the WhatsApp message on X on Thursday, FCCPC said it was from an unauthorised source.

“The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) wants to bring to your attention that the “directive” referenced in your story captioned, “Grammar police spot error in FCCPC’s directive on consumer exploitation” did not originate from the FCCPC or any of our official channels,” the commission said.

“We became aware of the aforementioned “directive” circulating on WhatsApp, just like the general public.

“It appears to be misinformation circulated by an unauthorised source that capitalised on our previous post on the commission’s X handle.

“In addition to the highlighted grammatical error, “report any trader that keeps adding money to his or her goods”, the unauthorised source incorrectly directed consumers to complain via hotline instead of our official email address, [email protected].”

FCCPC said the public should always disregard any information not disseminated through its official channels or verified social media accounts.