Let me tell y’all a funny story of how my dad nearly got scammed in January. So, my daddy is a civil engineer. He got a job as a project supervisor in an estate where people buy land to build and sell last year. One day, a man came to their construction site and met my dad, saying he’s a pastor and stuff, and he would like to purchase 2 houses in the estate, which are valued at 75 million naira each. My father, being close to the owner of the 2 houses, acted as an agent. Daddy told the landlord (owner) about this client, and my father started communicating with him on WhatsApp about the purchase and stuff. I was really excited too about the fact that daddy is the middle man here—that’s a cut on each purchase, omo. The client said he is a pastor at a Winners church. Well, he was looking legit and spoke confidently. He said he was buying the properties for his elder brother, who’s a UK-based medical doctor, as an investment in Nigeria. So, he gave daddy his brother’s number, and they started chatting. After a few back-and-forth texts for 2 days, this medical doctor decided to make payments for the houses plus other fees, making it over N150 million.
But it took another turn when he said he couldn’t do a transfer. I was confused because there are many payment channels he could use, including crypto too, but he said he would send €100,000 over through a shipping service—that’s about 200 million, haba! My dad said no, oh, that wasn’t the agreed amount, and sending cash through a shipping service just sounded crazy. The medical doctor said it would be safe because he has someone in Nigeria who’s an immigration officer to receive it and clear it, but my father shouldn’t let his brother know that he is sending above N150 million, saying my father should be the one to pick it from the international airport, remove the house money, and hold the rest because he wants my father to do the furnishing of the house and other stuff with the remaining balance. At this point, we didn’t know what to think because the money was just bursting our heads. Daddy related this to the owner of the property, and omo, that one gave the go-ahead—madam needed money too. Then we spoke with our family lawyer, a neighbor of ours we could trust. He wasn’t having it, saying it looked shady.
What if it’s stolen money, he said. Now it was looking like a Nollywood-level type of scam. So, we were invested to know who this so-called doctor really was. I looked up his +44 number, and it came up as a virtual number. It started making sense now, so we decided to play along. Funny enough, all this while, the pastor guy didn’t reach out at all—no calls from him to say what’s up. So, the doctor called my dad on WhatsApp, saying he would ship it on the weekend and sent a picture of a carton loaded with mints of England. So, my dad asked him to send us some money so we could book our own flight to Lagos because we’re in Port Harcourt to get the money since it’s landing in Lagos. This doctor said we shouldn’t worry—he would ask his friend over there to move it to PH to save us the stress. Okay now, we billed him for more money so we could at least book security and stuff because Nigeria isn’t safe, and he knows it. He said he doesn’t do transfers, but he can do MoneyGram, though he can’t because he is far from their office and his work schedules. We just laughed.
Boom! This unfortunate fellow called again one morning, saying the money was on transit at the moment and that we should do him a favor and send the clearance payment of $500 (that’s over N700k) to his immigration officer friend at Lagos International Airport so he could send it to us, saying we could deduct it from the package. Ahh, see format! Did he think my papa was a clown? Immediately, everyone in the room burst into laughter. He heard it and ended the call. The following day, he blocked my father. Please, y’all should stay safe out there. These people are really getting creative.
Also Read: He Lied to Me About a Job