Will that lover make or mar your Pension Pot?- Odunze Reginald C

Image credited to Money watch in  Google pension images

In a film, titled  “the wolf of wall street”,  Based on the true life 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 and young guys  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 mails asking them to present themselves of owners of the fund, but does it exist.  My colleague once received 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 he became vulnerable to their antics because, he was expecting a free gift.

Nowadays people are hoodwinked because of sex, as the con artist 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 you go ahead you may be a victim of fraud, or crime of passion.

But the most devastating of all these fraud are the one targeting on Retirees, experience has shown that old people are like children, and it becomes worse when such people are single, may be due to fate or unnecessary selection, they missed out on their life partner, or they are recently divorced , separated or far from their loved one due to works demand.

According to recent development, analyst are of the view that con artist are directing their dragnet to the retirees, especially in Europe and other foreign countries who at one time or the other have to sell their houses, homes and other valuable accessories because they  are being hoodwinked by con artist based on love .

Research has shown that people are moved easily when the opposite sex expressed feelings of love and desire for them; it shows that they are still needed and desired. And that gimmick can throw most old people off balance.

And coupled with the fact they have more money to spend , they may end up losing their life savings , that desire for get rich quick syndrome has driven most Africans  in foreign countries to marry their grandmothers and mothers all in a bid to get green cards, more money and wealth. But that is mild situation, because most of them eventually  fall in love, as psychologists have postulated that people tend to be in love as they stay close to each other over a longer period of time. ‘

But the worst case scenarios are those driven by greed that end up killing the so called lovers, wives etc and fleeing with their hard earned money.

In recent videos that went  viral in Malaysia, it is even very difficult to convince the women when they were fleeced of their  hard earned money that these boys are not in love with them. One of such cases, psychologist and mental therapist have to work on her because the young man has already eating deep in her brain. And there is  that general belief that the more faraway the love, the better the long for it.

And no woman will ever hate anyone that passes positive comment on her, no matter her age and that is what the con artist have come to discover.