KEYWORD FOR THE WEEK: FRAUD!!

Whenever I see the word “fraud”, I think of all the scam and fake sites I’ve fallen for. Well, I can’t really blame anyone but greed that made me fall for such fraudulent schemes. I’ll be sharing some of my experiences with you guys and I hope you all can learn from it too.

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You know as a Nigerian, first thing that comes to your mind after you graduate is getting a job. So, after doing the compulsory 1 year service to my country, I set out to look for a job. The job wasn’t forthcoming and I was getting exhausted. Around 2015, “MMM Nigeria” was newly introduced. They promised us 30% return of investment. People were skeptical at first but with time, the wave of the Ponzi scheme was unstoppable. It was the only hope back then for the common man in Nigeria. I had to join with the little resources I had with me.

With time, I was making money. In Nigeria, people only need to see evidence before they can be convinced to joined. I used my evidence to convince as many as possible in order to get “referral bonus”. I rose to the level of “guider” in MMM owned by mavrodi. I thought I’ve arrived. I stopped looking for job because I didn’t see any reason.

Towards the end of the year, when we heard about the break, with our money stuck inside, we didn’t really see any reason to panic because in guider’s class, they will teach you how to control panic and anxiety attacks in situations like this and also how to calm the crowd down to be patience. Little did we know it was a strategy to runaway.

The one month break has elapsed, we were expecting this people back. We went to the site hoping it will now function properly, nothing was happening!! I started getting scared of my innocent money. How it has been kidnapped by one hoodlum in Russia. I started hearing news of people running helter skelter trying to avoid the banks they collected loans, people started dying, we heard of even suicidal attempts all because of the fraud.

Around, that period, the government started warning us not to join all those Ponzi schemes but we didn’t care to listen because they have never care for us. Government has always want us poor, so we can be at their mercy. I didn’t care to listen. I thought I was smart, I decided to jump on other fraudulent Ponzi schemes, “Twinkas” that promised us 100%.

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I saw it as an opportunity to recover all my money I lost in MMM NIGERIA. I quickly rushed into it. I started with little money, they paid me, twice and I was happy about it. Not quite long, around the same period, 2016, I heard of another fraudulent scheme paying 300% of our money. I carried the little that I’ve made from “twinkas” and quickly jumped into this 300% Ponzi scheme. It didn’t take long I heard Twinkas have crashed and I was happy that I narrowly escaped this nightmare. Unknown to me, I was sitting on a time bomb waiting to explode on my face.

The format this guys used was like a queue system. If you pay a certain amount, for instance $5000, they will give you a queue number, let’s say no. 35 in the line to recieve from 3 different people that will pay me $5000. That will be me, receiving $15000. How gullible I was then. It was all automated. I was excited that my number wasn’t too far before I’ll get paid. When it was almost time for me to get paid after been patient enough for about 2 weeks, I was now in the 3rd position. I was expecting my money that day. I can never forget. I decided to reboot my computer to see if my position has reached 1st position, so I can follow procedures to get my $15000, only for me to see my position in the queue number have moved from 3rd position to 225th position in the queue’s number, I almost fainted.😭😭😭😭

I rebooted my computer like 100x that day, my position kept jumping from different positions backwards. I started having high fever. I chatted their “support” as If my life depended on it. Indeed, my life depended on it. Those crazy ass, fraudulent people were not responding. They have ran away with my money again. I couldn’t eat again.

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A member of my old WhatsApp group that I joined now came up with another Ponzi scheme from India. His name his @eurogee. The guy said he has done his research and it is genuine. He sold it pretty well to us. Immediately, I heard I’ll be earning In dollars, I jumped to the idea.

Money I would have used to buy medicine to treat myself after the heart attack the previous one gave me, I used it to invest in the system, thinking it was foolproof, In the end it still failed me. I started walking like a zombie in the streets of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. I’ve been duped again.

While I was still on the group chat leaking my wounds, @eurogee came again online that he wants to make up for his mistakes, that he had seen another site before we will let him finished he statement on the WhatsApp group, we’ve cursed the hell out of him. 😂😂😂😂 He begged us to at least listen to him. That this doesn’t involved us putting money.

That this was genuine and as far as you can read and write, you can make money out of it, all it requires was hard work and discipline. We now gave him listening ears!! I know you will be wondering by now what he introduced to us???

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That was how I joined the almighty “steemit” in 2017…… about 27 of us signed up that day but with time, we reduced to 17 that were serious about it. in less than a year, I made all the money I’ve lost because it was around that time SBD was around 12$ and steem was around 7$. It was a bull run that season. I can never forget those good old days. Though steemit was a hard nut to crack back then than it is now, but it was worth it…….

But guess what , when I thought I’ve now gotten all the experience and I will never fall prey to any other fraudulent scam, I got scammed again by MAXWELL ODUM, ceo of MBA FOREX!!! but that’s story for another time, let me stop here for now!!

Till we meet next time again…

Cheers!!!