They are everywhere waiting for you to make just one mistake… Be on your Guard!!!!!!

It is no longer a joke and if you are reading this and you have not had the experience of what I am talking about please, you must be on your guard at all times because once you close your eyes for just a second you will become their victim. Those of us in the crypto sphere have been hearing of scammers whose intentions are nothing but to steal people’s assets by any means necessary even if it means sending worthless coins to random wallets in a bid to carry out Phishing once the owner attempts to interact with the coin in his wallet. This has been going on for so long and the worrisome part is that these scammers are always coming up with new schemes just to break open people’s wallets. I will advise you not to sleep for any minute because if you do, you may wake up to see an empty wallet. Having said that, I am not going to dwell on the issue of crypto scammers because it has become well known but I will dwell more on the other type of scammers who are out there to reap from where they did not sow.

My Experience with them

Have you ever received a phone call and the caller calls you by your name and sounds very pleasant and familiar with you? I believe a lot of us in this platform must have experienced that but, what do you do when the caller assumes the name of a long time friend or distant cousin or uncle? This is not in any way to say that there are no traces of this pattern of scamming happening in the other parts of the world but the truth is that I believe it has become worst than before in Nigeria. Currently, the economy of Nigeria is seriously going down the drain and it seems as though the government does not have any clue of what to do because even as the economy is going down, the president has already written to the national assembly (lawmakers) notifying them that he wants to collect another loan whereas the country is already in huge depth due to the already collected loans from China, Japan, USA etc.

I believe that this is one of the reasons why the economy is going down with such magnitude. Now, this economic meltdown has given rise to so many people trying to make ends meet by scamming others. Well, I will not make any excuse for anyone who decides to go into fraudulent activities just because he/she feels like the government is doing nothing. There are millions of legitimate ways by which one can make ends meet therefore, resorting to scamming others as a means of livelihood is and can never be acceptable by me.

Ok, I said I was going to narrate the entire story to us just to give us a heads up in case you encounter such any day. I was just trying to arrange what I want to write when my phone rang and lo and behold, it was an unknown number. When I picked the call, the caller called my name in such a way that I could swear that he knows me very well. When I responded, he made this comment;

“I guess you must be thinking that I am a scammer right? because that is what is now reigning in this country”.

I must tell you that the moment I had that I became even more confused. Truth be told, I have had series of calls from scammers who will start by saying that they are my distant relative living overseas but was able to get my contact on Facebook because they wanted to send something home. Whenever I hear this statement, I usually tell them to tell me the particular relative by telling their name as a means of identification. Whenever I do that, they will instantly end the call but this caller was completely different both with the way he was sounding like someone who knows me so well.

When he made that statement I told him that nothing of that sort was going on in my mind that even though I know that scammers are everywhere, it does not mean that every unknown caller is a scammer. Frankly speaking, I gave him that response because I was 50% sure that he was someone who knows me. Now, that was the cue he was waiting for. You know when you are setting a trap and you leave bait for the fish or animal you want to catch. In my case, the statement he made was his bait and in all honesty, I almost threw away my guard. The next thing he said was;

“So you don’t have my number that must be the reason you don’t call me, well no problem”.

He began to ask me about my parents and siblings and to make matters worse, he was calling their names one after the other. After that, he asked me the question I believed was their newest pattern. His question was;

“What do you do for a living now, I know you are done with school. How are you coping with life?”

Due to my kind of reserved personality when it comes to discussing my life especially what I do to make a living, I just had to give him a direct answer by saying that life is treating me well. I guess that was not the response he was expecting because he had to rephrase the question by saying;

“Have you gotten a good job with good pay?”

Now, one thing you must always know is that scammers will always tip you off with their level of impatience at all times. I had to ask him why he is so interested in knowing about what I do for a living. That was when I began to sense foul play. He changed the topic just to remove my mind from any form of doubt. Before I could say jack his impatience blow up in his face because he did not know when he voiced out the same question but in a rephrased manner saying;

“I guess you are working in a bank now”

At this point, I knew that something was not right and immediately I began to look for a way to nail him so I decided to go with his flow. I told him that his guess was correct and I asked him how he was able to know that I was working with the bank.

That was when he failed woefully. In his response to he said that he remembered that I have always wanted to work in a bank while I was younger. I for one have never thought or even imagined working in a bank all my life in fact, that was completely far from the reality. Due to his response, I had to ask him when last he saw me immediately, he changed the topic by saying that his wife and children are overseas that he just came down to Nigeria to do close some business deal. As I was trying to understand what he was saying, he now threw in his last bait by saying;

“Do you have a Zenith Bank Account?”

This came as a surprise because I run an account with Zenith Bank but my fear was how he got to know all these. It dawned on me that this young or whoever he was has been searching through my Facebook account and probably other social handles I use. It was at this juncture that I asked him the question I should have asked him from the beginning but due to his extreme carefulness, he was able to make me not think towards that angle. When I asked him to tell me his name he began to fuss by saying that he feels insulted if after all this long talk that I am still unable to place his voice. Instantly, I realized that that was my cue to win him in the game. I told him that it is not like the voice does not sound familiar it was just that I was trying to pinpoint the exact person. I told him that his voice sounds like uncle Emeka’s voice. Immediately he fell into my trap by saying;

“I thought you have forgotten the sound of my voice”.

In all honesty, I had no uncle with such a name so I had to tell him that he has failed that I had no uncle by the name Emeka. Immediately I found out that he has been made, he began to curse and say all manner of things but I just reminded him that it was his airtime he has been wasting all this while. That was when I had to end the call.

If you want to catch a thief, you must be ready to think 100 steps ahead of him so that he will no longer have the means to dodge when you have caught him red-handed. That experience thought me a lot and I became wiser that is why I am here to tell you to never let down your guard at all times. Be ready to shoot at the right time and if the person is a scammer, he/she will certainly fall for it.

I am so sorry for the lengthiness of this post, please pardon me, it is all for the good. Thank you for reading it to the end.

 Davinchysax loves you…

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE for more.

Lead image from Unsplash.com