My experience and lessons from an online fraudster.

It was immediately after the sallah ram festival last year in Nigeria, and my brother and I had been following keenly a ram salesman on Instagram who kept updating the audience about his farm and its progress. His Instagram profile was extremely convincing, with videos and photographs. My brother and I had the intention of starting up a ram farm, and we thought it wise to begin with four lambs, where one of them would be male while the others should be female for the purpose of procreation and multiplicity. My elder brother was also following the profile, and we got convinced to make some purchases.

My brother hinted at the availability of lambs advertised by the seller, and we decided to give it a go. I contacted the seller on Instagram and expressed our interest in procuring some lambs for rearing. I can hardly remember the exact amount he quoted for each, but eventually, we arrived at N25, 000 ($21) each and a total of N100, 000 ($84). The money was not available to be paid completely, and thus, the seller agreed to be paid in installments. He asked us to pay N25, 000 ($21) in two places rather than a whole N50, 000 ($42) that we had to pay at once. And the seller asked me to put in the narration about the lambs to be purchased. We also discussed the mode of transportation, as he was located in Abeokuta, which is about 300km, a 5-hour drive by road.

Beyond Instagram correspondence, I spoke with the seller of the phone, and we discussed the lambs to be bought. After I made the first transfer of payment, I made a promise to balance the remainder before a one-month gap. I asked for the receipt of the deposit I made, but he could not present a letter-headed receipt; rather, he scribbled something about my payment, which I stated was not standard enough to represent evidence of payment. He promised to get me the appropriate receipt when full payment is made, as he could not be writing two different receipts. I was skeptical and informed my brother. In fact, I wanted to ask for a refund, but, being hopeful that my brother is, we eventually settled to balance up and did not wait for the month gap to do that.

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The completion of the payment was the genesis of the eye opening when a proper receipt was not issued, only with excuses. The seller then asked me to pay N30, 000 ($25) for transportation, but after some bargaining, we settled for N20, 000 ($16.7), which he asked me to pay into a different account than that which I had paid into previously. I declined paying the N20,000 for the transportation when the receipt was not forthcoming. Gradually, he began to decline my calls, and eventually, he blocked my line when I requested my refund. My brother reached out to him also, but it was a dead end.

Having heard of standing orders where a court can mandate a bank to withdraw money from a confirmed fraudulent account and revert to the victims. I paid a lawyer to facilitate the standing order for N15, 000 ($12.5). The lawyer reached out to me some days later and said that the bank could not honor the order as the bank owner claimed the transaction was not fraudulent but rather an inconclusive one. The lawyer advised further steps that would warrant extra costs, which I realized would only keep dragging. At that instance, I convinced my brother to abandon the pursuit as it would only cause us more mormy with no assurance of an eventual refund from the fraudster.

The incident above made me realize that my purchases should be limited to things I can see and feel, unless from approved and authenticated sites. That incident last year has been the last case I have had that relates to any loss of significant funds.

Thank you for reading. I would love to have your comments and contributions.

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