So hello to all, my name is Zainab and this is the short story of how i was almost scammed in 2020. So here goes. In 2020, It all started on X, formerly known as twitter, when this guy slid into my DMs, claiming he liked me. Nothing unusual about that, i mean people shoot their shots on social media every day. What I didn't know was that this particular one would teach me a lesson I would never forget. Lol!
Less than 24 hours after he messaged me, he was already talking about sending me a gift from Nevada. According to him, he was a pilot working there and he was saying that he really loved me and all that but in my mind i was still trying to understand how someone could develop such strong feelings for a person he had barely known when he dropped the bombshell. He claimed he had sent me ten hijabs and Six thousand dollars and in my head i was like ten hijabs? Six thousand dollars? For someone he had only just met online? I told him he didn't need to do all that. Honestly, I couldn't even imagine what I was supposed to do with ten hijabs at once. Something about the whole arrangement felt off and just felt too good to be true but I hadn't figured out what he was really after.
Then came the emotional part of his story, he told me his mother was dying of cancer and lived in Taraba State. According to him, he had included some drugs for her in the package, but he needed my help getting them to her. I told him to send me the drugs and I would do my best to deliver them. At that point, I wasn't thinking about the money or the hijabs. If there was a sick woman who needed medication, I was willing to help. So, hours later, I received a call from someone claiming to be handling the delivery. The caller apologised on his behalf, thanked me for my cooperation, and asked for my phone number to arrange the delivery.
Then came the catch, because when something seems to good to be true it more often than not is actually too good to be true and so I was told to pay ₦60,000 to have the package delivered from NA International Airport to Dutse, where i lived and then I asked why I should pay when the package supposedly contained thousands of dollars. Why couldn't they simply deduct the delivery fee from the money?
The man kept insisting that I had to pay first, then the story about his dying mother returned. He pleaded with me, saying she might die if she didn't receive the drugs. He made it sound as though her life depended entirely on my willingness to send ₦60,000. Initially i refused but he just sounded so genuine and emotional that i just felt like giving in at the time but here's where things got interesting. During one of our phone conversations, the call didn't end immediately when it should have. I can't remember whether the connection was still open or someone simply forgot to hang up, but I ended up hearing more than I was supposed to.
Their was a conversation I wasn't meant to hear, and i heard someone on the other side of the phone say “You sure say she go send this money”(meaning are you sure she is going to send this money), then immediately the call was cut off, maybe they thought i didn’t hear that part but after that the whole situation began to look different. The urgency, the emotional blackmail, the mysterious package, and the insistence on a delivery fee all started making sense in the worst possible way.
I realised that whatever was happening had nothing to do with a dying mother or a generous pilot who had fallen for me overnight. The story was designed to make me emotional enough to part with my money without asking too many questions. The moment I refused to pay, he blocked me.
No more messages and no more talk about his mother's health. The gift and all of course never landed and for me that experience was an eye opener. Imagine losing ₦60,000 to someone who had promised you 6,000 dollars, ten hijabs, and a romantic connection all in one package. I’m sure looking at what i was to receive they thought i’d just hurriedly accept to pay because it pales in comparison to what i stood to gain. Looking back, I laugh about it now, but it taught me that sometimes people use kindness as bait and your emotions become the trap.
Image is A.I genereated!!