Avoiding being victim of fraudsters and other related crimes-Odunze Reginald C

Images credited to white collar crime

In a film, titled  “the wolf of wall street”,  Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.

I just received these messages in Face book chat, it states and I quote

“hello dear I am miss Rita I saw your profile here on Face book and become interested to be friend with you please kindly reply me so that I
will send you my picture and tell you more about myself”

These were wordings of a scammer, and if you are not careful, you may think that the young lady who may be a man camouflaging as a woman is interested in you, alas such is not the case; he or she is only interested in your money or even in your life.

In early 90s, one of the major tactics used by these fraudsters to trick foreigners  were  to write to different companies through the Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director  of fake companies offering bogus contracts that does not exist, and trying one or two voodoos in hoodwinking suspecting public, they were also involved in other related scam devices like employment, property scam, Alhaji‘s port folio (IBU ALHAJI), there were also the Arrange, wash- wash  that involved the laundering of money with mercury and other substances as they claimed. Usually carton of neatly cut papers coated with carbon.

But fraudsters now used the internet to dupe their victims. And according to Alex (2007:7) in an article in the Guardian Newspapers captioned “Nigeria fraudsters have moved to West African Nations say EFCC. He stated that these fraudsters have shifted their operations to foreign countries and other West African countries, since Nigeria has been labeled a fraudulent country.

They open up offices and operate as if they are in genuine business, all they do is to acquire computers and internet facilities and business has started.

Back to the messages, it will be erroneous for one to reply to these Face book chat messages, as they are intended to cheat, defraud the suspecting public, why should a woman be interested in a man that she is seeing on the pages of Face book, why should a woman be interested in a man that that has displayed his marital status, pictures of his wife and children, the gazed is as good as mine.

The dangerous of it is that most ladies has followed such people to hotel rooms and some get killed or fleeced of their hard earned money, the case of Cynthia is still fresh in our minds.

So what do you to avoid scammers and con artist, and as Robert Schuler will say”if you are at the bottom weighed down by overwhelming circumstances, if you are at the edge of panic, the most dangerous thing, you can do is to make a negative irreversible decision” Schuler (1988:205)   Continuing he said “keep believing and there will be a breakthrough. You will break through the challenges that you are currently facing” Schuler (op cited)

Believe that there is no free gift even in Freetown, once you have that in your mind; it becomes increasingly difficult to scam you. In the universal format of next of kin, people are sent scam mail asking them to present themselves of owners of the fund, but does it exist.  My colleague once received a text messages signaling his winning a lottery in 5 Million in MTN promo, unknown to us , he kept it secret, and was busy asking us how much is the price of a particular Honda. We became suspicious of him knowing quite alright his meager salary.  He left only to come back to inform us that he was asked to send recharge cards. Though he did not disclosed that if he actually send or not, but I think became vulnerable to their antics because, he was expecting a free gift.

Nowadays people are hoodwinked because of sex, as the con artists send such messages, if you are not careful, you will be doomed, there is no story about it, so the best a man can do is to avoid unsolicited relationship, sex and money. By so doing you will be doing yourself more good but if go ahead you may be a victim of fraud, or crime of passion.

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