My ordeals with a fraudster

One of the most common things we experience in our world today is the act of scammers and fraudsters trying to loot us of our assets. Many have fallen victim to their act, and trust me, it's not a pleasant experience, as many have ended up losing their lifelong savings to these people. Today, I'll love to share my encounter with one that happened just two weeks ago, and I hope you'll learn from my experience.

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While this didn't happen to me directly, it happened to my boss, and I did witness most of the event and how it played out at our workplace. Just from a promise of rewards, we watched how the fraudsters played his game till the point where my boss ended up in a police cell, and trust me, had she not know some people in high government positions, she would have slept in the cell and paid for something she knew nothing about. Well, without further ado, let's dive into how it all plays out.

So it was just like every other work day; we were all in school, teaching or doing one activity or another. Then, on my way to class, I saw a man and a young lady who were headed to the principal office, and not long after entering her secretary office, both came out. By the time I'd come back from the class, I saw the lady and the man offloading several bags of rice a few feet away from the principal office.

I was wondering what was going on, and the principal told us that the man came and said the government asked him to give the staff of the school 16 bags of rice as palliative to curb the current inflation. That would have sounded suspicious on a normal day, but because we heard that the same had been distributed in other schools, we thought he was legit. Apparently, the man was telling a lie to both us and the lady with whom they came together.

Well, this is how it all happened. The man actually visited the store of the lady and told her that the staff of my school wanted to buy several bags of rice from her and that she should come along with him to confirm at the school. But on getting to our school, they both walked into the secretary desk of our principal, but only the man went into the office, so it'll seem to the lady that our principal knew about what he came to do, but upon entering the principal office, all he did was greet her and say he brought palliatives for us, the principal's request for the official letter, and he said he'd be back because he left it in the car.

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Coming out, he told the lady that the deal had been settled and that she should bring 12 bags of rice, which the lady quickly went to bring from the store. When the lady came back with a car loaded with the truck of rice, they started offloading it, and that's when I was coming out of the class that I saw them.

Well, apparently, he told her she'd need to bring four more bags, and the lady left again for her store to bring the other bags of rice. Before the lady came back, the man had loaded the rice into another car and zoom out of the school premises without raising any suspicion. When the lady came back and didn't see the man or bags of rice, she walked to the principal office to make an inquiry, and my principal said she's not aware of what the lady saying.

To cut a long story short, the lady started crying and shouting that we'd duped her. The principal was surprised and asked if she had any agreement with her in the first place. The lady said no and then narrated all that the man told her, that he asked her to bring the 50 kg bags of rice, that we the staff said we wanted to buy, and that after seeing the man enter the principal office, she felt they knew each other and truly had agreed. Our principal told her the man said he palliatives from the government, but she never obliged, but asked him to bring a official letter to back up his claim, which he never return after that encounter.

Reality started dawning on the lady, who happens to only be a salesgirl. She called her boss, who happens to be the wife of a high-ranking police officer, and before we knew it, police drove into our school and took our principal to their station for inquiries. Immediately after she got there, they took her statement and then took her valuables from her and threw her into the cell. Some of us, the staff that followed her, had to call our superior officers in Lagos, who intervened by calling people they also knew.

It wasn't easy; it was a toosle of power, but in the end, they had to release her because there was no single piece of evidence or signed documents that showed she received the rice or had anything to do with the scammer's activities. Had such an intervention not happened, that's how she(my boss) would have been asked to repay a whopping ₦600,000 plus to cover for the 12 bags of rice carted away by the fraudster.

It wasn't a pleasant experience at all because we were all on our toes from when it happened until it got sorted out late in the evening of the same day. No one could go home, and we wouldn't have the boldness to walk around the street in such a case. If it were to be concluded that our boss was indeed a part of the fraud, it'll ruin the image of the school and us, the staff therein.

But then, luckily, this got sorted out, and the lady had to pay for her loss or hold her salesgirl responsible for the loss while the police kept playing their part in trying to locate the actual scammers.

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I learned a very serious lesson that day: some scammers just need to walk up to you and say random things that'll make them seem close to you, while all they needed was to make their prey think you're working with them. So I've decided to be extra careful of random strangers or close friends who acted in suspicious ways, and I hope we'll all be careful going forward.

Now imagine the palliative that almost got us in trouble and got my boss to stay in the cell for a few hours, was later brought and distributed to us at the school last week Friday. Obviously, these scammers are well informed, and they do everything to gain one's trust just so they can use us in their quest to loot, so we need to be extra careful and stay at alert.

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Thanks so much for your time. I hope you enjoyed the read and learned something. Have a wonderful day ahead.