One of the most trending habit these days is known as scamming which is a major profession these days. In this era of technological advancements, it has made it a lot easier for both fraudster and scammers, especially internet fraudster who map out their victim through different schemes and tricks. It has become more difficult to avoid them these days because they are everywhere.
There are lot of strategies used by scammers but everything is dependent on how good they are in influencing a person's greed. They offer a lot of good stuff that doesn't seem to require much effort and one thing I know about humans is every body likes free stuff.
You might try to deny it but the truth is we all have a price, though it might not be monetary but it is something. Knowing how humans think and majority of humans lack contentment, scammers come around making irresistible offers. The funny thing about their tactics is every victim of a scammer experience a moment of clarity which reminds them of the potential risk they are taking, for some people this wake up call prevents them from being scammed but for others that are blinded by greed, it has no effect.
Few years ago, before my final year project, i was really in need of a new laptop because the old one i was using was giving me a lot of difficulties. Knowing that I will soon be offering project service for people, I started saving money till when I was ready to purchase a laptop, I was feeling too reluctant to visit computer village not because i was lazy but I was considering how much it will cost me to travel from Abeokuta, Ogun State to computer village in Ikeja, Lagos State. knowing the cost of the laptop I was aiming for, I tried cutting cost as much as I could.
One day, I was viewing WhatsApp status when I discovered that one of my contact seems to be into sales of laptop. I decided to check him out though I'm not a fan of online vendors but I believed if is business was legit it will do me a lot of good by patronising him and moreover he was staying in Abeokuta. I sent him a DM and we started negotiating. From our conversation he seems to be a nice person, well I guess I was wrong. We discussed for days while he sent me a lot of pictures of the laptops he has in store. My former laptop was Lenovo ideapad 2 but I wanted to try something new by going for HP.
The picture he sent to me, a particular HP EliteBook caught my attention, I picked it and we discussed about the laptop but the price just seem too cheap for that kind of laptop model, that made me feel a little uneasy. After much discussion, he suggested I pay and the laptop will be delivered to me but I'm too paranoid to agree with his suggestion. So he promised to deliver it to me in person which seems like a very nice idea.
A day before the day we agreed to meet he texted me and said something came up he wouldn't be able to show up. He apologized and asked me if we could reschedule I said no problem because I felt such things do happen. The date of our meeting came and he gave me another excuse, I grew impatient and informed him that he shouldn't worry I will get it somewhere else. He started begging and asked me to be patient, he explained to me that he doesn't have the laptop in stock and he doesn't have enough money on him to purchase the laptop and if I could support him with half of the money then he will add the rest and purchase the laptop.
I was already getting suspicious, so I said since his shop is in Abeokuta, I would love to come and make a down payment, he paused for awhile and said ok, he gave me date and address of were he was, it was at tamark (known as computer village) in Abeokuta. I got there the following morning, met him at his shop but something just felt unsettling about everything because for someone who claimed to own a shop but could not take me inside the shop. I decided to play a trick on him, I pointed to another laptop in the shop, since he has that one in stock, it should not be a problem.
What happened next was funny, he said that I can't choose another laptop in the shop because he has already made part payment for the one I wanted to order. Same laptop he was not able to order because he doesn't have the full money, now he claims he had made part payment for it. I smiled, right there I knew exactly what was going on.
I opened my bank app and tried logging in few times but it didn't go through, I kept trying and he could see I was trying to log in into my bank app. I knew the bank app wouldn't open because zenith bank app requires a lot of attempt before it goes through. Eventually I told him I will send it to him when I get home, he wasn't so happy about it, he had no choice but to agree.
I left his shop and few minutes later he was already calling me repeatedly. Immediately I got home, I blocked his number. I thought about it for awhile and I realized if I had followed my desire to purchase a cheap laptop I would have gotten scammed. I guess when something looks too good to be true, it is definitely not true.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled Scam in hive learners community.
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