Investor

Hello great people, it’s been a while here.
Today’s post is about part two of “damn! my 3k” that I said I’d write about.

Source: unsplash.com

The very first time I joined the contact gain train was when I was in 400 level in the university.
That year, things were somehow tough and I barely had basic everyday needs. I’d called home continually and several times to the extent that I decided to stop calling on my own because I felt that it was getting too much.
Apart from having to pay for school fees, accommodation and feeding, other expenses such as professional exams and practicals were so demanding not to talk about personal stuff like getting hair done and satisfying cravings.
It’s even the person that has seen food to eat at all that will crave for other things.

So, I stopped calling home frequently and managed very little money.
While I was scrolling through the WhatsApp status updates of my recently added contacts, I realized that there are a lot of businesses that actually exist and can be traded easily online. Maybe contact gain files aren’t that bad if I’m being serious. I learnt a lot from people that I do not know and haven’t even seen before in my life.

As I kept scrolling, one particular bluish background text flashed across my face. It was very quick like it was designed to move quickly. At that instant, I was sure that I saw something similar to “ if you lose, you snooze, trading is still going on” “offer ends by 9pm”.
I knew it was something about money and that caption is quite captivating. I wanted to know more about it.

I swiped back in the statuses a few times and didn’t find it. I decided to cancel it all and began from the beginning of the status update that read “just now”. I scrolled and swiped till I reached the updates from “23 hours ago”.
Imagine scrolling through over a 100 people’s statuses.
I eventually saw the texts in question under the viewed status updates. I got pissed off for having to waste time to search for it in the first place but I dissolved it quickly when I saw the offer in the text.

I went through the previous updates of that particular person’s status.
Apparently he’s an investor that can double an invested money within a short period of time.

I took my time to study him via his status updates that evening.
He started with a “picture of himself” with a caption that’s similar to “God gives, it’s required of blessed men to bless others”. The next four updates had to do with testimonies of people who invested the previous day with screenshots of their alerts and happy comments.
Other updates were for potential investors( people who’d give up any amount of money and get interest on it within a short period of time). Followed by testimonies of people that invested a few hours to that time and also screenshots of people getting him to look at their sides for his quick “money miracle”.

I remembered the first update I saw that led me to his page, he wrote something about the offer closing by 9 pm and my current time stated 7:50 pm thereabout.

I rushed my brain toward my account balance and realized that I had about 4500 naira.
I thought that if I invest in this scheme, I’d get double or almost double the amount in return. My whole mind was captured and all I waited for was for him to drop another update for potential investors.

Luckily for me, he dropped another one where he explained that anyone that invests 10,000 naira at that moment would get 100% interest on it.
The mathematician in me calculated it and found out that I’d get the same amount of interest on the money, that’s 10,000 naira plus 10,000 naira… 20,000 naira, just like that.

I wanted to invest fast. And cash out fast. Well, I wanted it fast so that I’d begin to ball and spend the money by satisfying my food cravings, then I’d be able to buy the sleek phone pouch I saw on my way from church that Sunday and still have my 10,000 naira change.
It’d have been a miracle indeed if I had that 10,000 naira on me at that time.

Thoughts about borrowing money from my roommate to invest crossed my mind and immediately, I got down from the basement that I sat to enjoy the cool breeze and laugh away worries from watching funny WhatsApp statuses. Only for me to get inside the room and find out that my roommate was asleep.
I hissed and got angry that she chose a wrong day to sleep early.

I went back outside, still trying to reason out other ways to get money when he uploaded another update “ 5k for 10k”.

Ooops! I had 4500 naira but only 4000 naira to spare. I’d planned that I’d use 300 naira from the remaining 500 naira to recharge airtime to ball online after the big win.

Where could I possibly get 1k at that time of the night?
The “k” behind the figures is a slang meaning thousand(s).

With a sprinkle of shame, I entered his dm for negotiation.
Just now, just now, I’ve become a trader… an investor for that matter. Big win.

Finally, he agreed that I should pay 4k for double the amount (8k).

I was so glad.
He sent his account details and I gleefully sent the 4k to him.

He had stated beforehand that it takes at most 20 minutes to generate double the price and I told him it’s cool.
One has to be patient to eat a fat meat just like a patient dog eats the fattest bone.

I waited for the exact 20 minutes and hoped for my investment to yield in 3,2,1..

I didn’t see a dime. I refreshed my bank app. That bank can be frustrating at times. Money might have entered and they’d refuse to send the credit alert.

I refreshed it thrice and my 502 naira kept giving me a criminalistic side eye look.

I rushed back to WhatsApp and asked him what was happening . He explains that I should be patient as he’s still on it.

But he has posted screenshots from a new person after the time that I invested. Why won’t mine drop so that I can paint the town red and give testimony too?

Lo and behold, I waited for almost two hours and he announced that he’s closed on his status.
I checked the time and it was 9 pm on dot.

I dropped messages for him but no reply.
I was so furious. I didn’t even know this person.
I wanted to cry. I called his line, not reachable.
When I finally came to my senses, I thought I'd been scammed.

I didn’t sleep well that night.

The next morning, I woke up to message him again. Thankfully, he’s opened on his status updates as well.
This time around, I didn’t even act sleek, I begged him to please just return my 4k that I wasn’t interested in investing anymore.
He read my messages with no response.
I kept on replying to all of his status updates, I explained how important the money was to a broke girl like me, I dropped voice notes but this guy read all without a response.

I called him on WhatsApp and he declined.
I later told him that he’s a scammer and started insulting him.
It was at that point that he blocked me completely.
I felt a very strong pain for the next week after that day and I didn’t forget the pain for a long time.

Since then, I don’t trust anyone from contact gain again. I can’t even purchase goods online from strangers that I’ve not met before except when their handle is verified.

Thank you for reading my story. This is the link to part 1 of the fraud story: Damn! My 3k