Over the years, scammers have become quite crafty in their tactics. As the world is evolving, so are they evolving. Everyday, fraudsters develop new ways to reap people's hard earned money. One of the drawbacks of technology is that it creates resources for these fraudsters. Technological advancement has provided new ways for scammers to exploit vulnerable victims. These fraudsters have devolved from hacking victims’ social media accounts, to creating phishing links, fake emails or websites, they have even discovered a way to wipe victims’ bank accounts. A single mistake can land you into their hands, and this is why we have to be careful in all that we do on the internet. These guys are active, prowling and looking for victims to devour.
Today, the world is messed up. It is sad that some people have taken to fraud as their job. They see it as their “business.” Why would a normal human being harm people just for the sake of making money? I understand that people are suffering, but I don’t think your should resort to reaping people of their hard earned money just because you are poor. Gradually, people, especially youths all over the world are choosing to scam people instead of working hard. Governments all over the world have tried different methods to stop frauds. Although some of the measure have proven to be a little bit effective, it hasn’t completely eradicated it. I’m my opinion, I don’t think fraud can be completely eradicated, it can only be reduced.
Have They Ever Tried To Scam Me?
Here in my country, fraudsters are everywhere . They are smart, effective and efficient in what they do. Only if they could channel their energy and brilliance into another thing, then it would have been way better. There are smart ones who would sneakily make you fall for their schemes, on the other hand, there are dumb scammers- probably, they are newbies who haven’t gotten a hold of the “business” yet. These people are easy to avoid. Three years ago, there was a scam that was popular in my country. Honestly, I don’t why people fell for the scam because it was really obvious. Money doubler- pay ten thousand naira to get 20 thousand naira. Lots of my friends fell for this scam. Why would you believe someone out of nowhere would just wake up one day and decide to double your money- vivid imagination.
MY EXPERIENCE
I remember this incident like it happened yesterday. I don’t have lots of experience with scammers, I guess that is why my memory about this day isn’t flawed. This happened about two years ago. I was alone in the house when I received a SMS from an unknown number. The SMS contained series of numbers. It was obviously that it was airtime. I didn’t know what to do about it because I wasn’t expecting anyone to send me airtime. So, I decided to ignore it.
After about 5 minutes, I got a call from that number (the same one taht sent me the airtime). I picked it up and the voice sounded like a youth’s voice. The person said that an Old man mistakenly sent th airtime to me instead of his granddaughter. He begged me not to use the card and allow him send the it to the rightful owner. I felt for the old man. Then, I told him that I wasn’t going to use it. After about 5 minutes again, he called me back to thank me. He told me that the Old man is an powerful person who prays for kings, queens and wealthy people, and that because I helped him by not using the airtime, he would also love to pray for me.
The youth gave me phone to the Old man. His voice was shaky. He asked for my details - my name, age, the type of work I do and so on. The old man said before he would pray for me, I should get a bottled water. I hung up the call and wanted to go get the water. Then, suddenly, I came to my senses. It was just as if scales fell from my eyes and I was able to see clearly. I called one of my elderly friends, and it told me that old man and the youth are the same person. Meaning, the guy did a voice over as an old man. Damn! He was good. He told me that it’s a well known tactics that scammers use to get to their victims. First, they form and bond with you before they start to suck your money out. My friend told me that I narrowly escaped, because some of them use charm to get to their victims. After the call, I sent a message to the scammer, calling him names, and then I blocked him immediately.
HOW DID IT AFFECT ME
This experience didn’t really affect me in any way. Thankfully, the scammers weren’t successful. The experience only opened my eyes to their tactics.
Thanks for reading.