I almost turned a "Yahoo boy"

In June 2005, when I left my home state for Lagos in Nigeria, I stayed for some period of time before I could find meaningful to engage myself with.

During the period of waiting, I used to go to cybercafe (commercial browsing centre) to check if my awaiting highschool results have been released.

Each time I visit these business center, I observe that so many young people come in cliques to browse the internet.

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Merely looking at those guys, one will know that they are up to something, as some of them at tender age live in affluence. Extravagance was their hallmark.

I made enquiry about them and I was told they are "Yahoo boys". That is popular name in Nigeria for people that engage in internet scam.
Many people have resentment for them because of their way of life but no one could deny that they live in money.

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Later on, I got a job with a factory. I used to stay at my workplace from Monday to Saturday only to stay go home in Sundays. So, my boss's son, Jude, soon became a friend.

Little did I realize that Jude was deeply involved in internet scam. He was a smart " yahoo boy". One day, he called my attention to the fact that I could make so much money from internet business if I engage it and told me rough estimate of how he had made.

Upon hearing that, I felt

I am justified, if my boss's son could be engaging in this thing, why won't I do it.

There are many ways these scammers ply in defrauding on the internet, but prominent among others was dating scam. This is the way it works. They go on dating sites and majorly on yahoo messanger to make friends with people and start a relationship. Oftentimes they disguise as ladies and all their profiles including name, displayed pictures will attest to that.

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People fall victim of their advances, so they have many clients. They keep up the communication and establish good relationship with their clients with enticing words. There are many ways they request money from their clients, one of them is to request to meet live with their 'lover' who will be eager to meet with them. That is where money sending adventure starts from ranging from visa processing to ticket booking and so on.

Some, as the relationship gets intimated, they will show to the client with picture evidences that they involved in an accident who will begin to send money out of sympathy.

The incident that stopped me from proceeding into 'yahoo business' happened one evening when Jude came to call to me to go to the cybercafe together but I told him I don't feel like going. About an hour later, I reconsidered joining him. On getting there, I was told that men of EFCC (Economic and Financial Crime Commission) came to arrest all the scammers at the computer center including my friend.

It was so disgraceful when he was led to his father's house with handcuffs by hefty men with guns to ran sack his room in case of any illegal possession.

From that day on, I decided not to have anything to do with internet scam. Because
I knew God saved me from shame and disgrace. From then till now, the only "yahoo" I do is through the steem blockchain. Lol..

A big thanks to @swissclive for the opportunity to share this experience

I'm your regular blogger @petoz, upvote, resteem and follow.

Thanks for reading.