How Internet Fraud In Nigeria & Government Have Transformed Over The Years.
When I was younger, we had this thing called yahoo, (internet fraud) it was just all about a young man or woman, building a different identity online, using mostly dating sites to meet other people, pretending to like them, sending them nudes, (these nudes were of people downloaded on the internet or gotten on Instagram) in a bid to make these people part with their money, just for more excitement, or to feel loved, or to keep getting these pictures.
It's safe to say it's been a long time since people have been commercializing love or the resultant sexual appeal that came with it. What surprises me is that yahoo graduated from what we used to have to even worse, there were times when people could easily find love on the internet, and build business relationships with people from other places.
We didn't have crypto, Blockchain or Hive back then,
.....So, people majorly relied on dating sites. I know some people who built business relationships with people who they were intending to fall in love with and some people fell in love with the people they initially aimed to build a business with them. The truth is that the internet wasn't well-defined back in the day, and social media was geographically restrictive.
People didn't have that one true social construct where they can build bigger relationships, promote their crafts, culture, or business skills and have it reach a wider network, Facebook wasn't built that way and Instagram wasn't born then. This meant that dating apps became the closest to this.
Curiousity Begets Different Tendencies
Before dating apps became scam show, it was filled with people who were fascinated to see the cultural diversity of others, glad to hear their story, willing to build with them, and even send them money. The truth is that the money aspect was supposed to come at the end, it wasn't supposed to define these relationships.
Over the years some people came to understand that they could build fake stories, and conjure up failure or success stories, that could appeal to certain people to get money off them. The concept of yahoo graduated. Initially, it was just people who looked to make friends, but they got money and favors from these pen pals, the next idea was telling wealth or poverty stories, creating an online profile on these poverty stories to make money, and the next was using sexual appeal.
Sexual Appeal, & It's Commercialization
The Social aspect of the internet didn't start with people looking to find love, it started with people looking to find fascination, but eventually, people began to seek love. I was about 17 years when I opened my first dating site I was in and my Facebook account as well, I discovered that people weren't really on these dating sites to find love per se. They were mostly there out of curiosity, but meeting exciting people eventually changed the narrative.
Many people I know in Nigeria here, got married to rich people they met on these apps, relocated, and had better chances at a good life, and due to this, some other people got so desperate, this desperation created ulterior motives, these people began to slip up, making mistakes and it wasn't long before the culture became, using dating apps for sophisticated scams.
When love appeal couldn't work, aggrandized sexual intents began to sell.
It's a condescending tactics
These guys would target older women or older men who were either divorced or going through loneliness, send them these crazy nude pictures, and ask them to part ways with their money if they wanted to have them. This style worked for too long, we had people online selling their houses, and properties, leaving their jobs, because of sexual needs and a lot of these women and men went bankrupt because they thought they'd initially found love and sex.
Of course, yahoo graduated as well, and the system became too saturated, with too many people looking to make some quick bucks, it wasn't long before this method became obsolete, we later had sophisticated scam systems where people majorly impersonated other people, running wire fraud, organizational fraud, and so many others.
Fraud Metamorphosised, As People Showed Mental Alertness
It is just marveling how this thing started on a small scale and today it's one of the most prevalent economic aberrations in the Nigerian system. When I was younger, we often had people blame unemployment as the reason why they're in this game.
They claim they cannot create jobs or better opportunities to enrich and empower themselves, but the funniest thing is that these people take time to create appealing systems from scratch to sell these scams.
I think there's a lot of hard work to scam because creating the concept of believability in other to dupe people takes a lot of effort. In Nigerian society these days the idea of yahoo has become so saturated, almost every young man who owns an iPhone or a laptop is deemed to be an internet fraudster.
The Police Widened The Net Of Corruption
Law enforcement are the real Robinhood
The police deem these guys to be bullion vans of wealth, and some of them have tailored their crime-fighting to hunting these guys to get a cut of this money. In reality, these guys have limited the opportunities of well-meaning Nigerians who are looking for bigger and better opportunities to better their lives.
Every young person in Nigeria is currently a suspect, especially because law enforcement agencies now believe the only way a young Nigerian can live well is if they're into these scams, would you blame them? The rate of unemployment is alarming, however, these guys are blind and unaware of the plenteous opportunities on the internet.
Business Are Built In Improvised Manners To Take Maximum Profits
How so?
Of course, I posted last year about how I was brutalized by the police because they seemingly felt I could be a prime suspect. Bad actors are hoping to commercialize and create bad intents in places where there could be good Opportunities, kids no longer want to go to school, society glorifies instantaneous wealth, people now want to become mega-rich, and they forgo education, and career building, and even skill acquisitions.
Even businesses are now being built to suit the extravagant spending culture of these guys. In fact, in the incessant bid to curb these guys, the government took to banning crypto trading because they felt it was the transaction mode of these guys. In so doing, they've halted serious business opportunities that well-meaning Nigerians have built over the years.
Interested in some more of my works?
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The Consequences Of Being Overly Assumptive About Money
A 1.6 Million Naira Use-case For iPhone 14
Free Money: What Will You Do With $216k Worth Of Crypto In Your Wallet? (2)
The 4 Ways Of Developing A Relevant Niche As A Content Creator
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A few months ago when I just joined Hive, I read a post where @b0s talked about how he wasn’t hasty in inviting people to Hive because once eh mentions he “works online”, everyone was quick to assume he was a fraudster.
The funny thing is that it’s not just in Nigeria. Even in Ghana, it’s like that. Might just be an African problem at this point. People see you using an iPhone and because they don’t see you working any physical job, they just assume you must be doing yahoo.
It’s like a norm these days to be a yahoo boy because almost every young person these days is into it. So much that the rest of us who’re not involved are seen as dumb. That is how much our broken moral compasses have gotten.
I think it was early this year when the issue of Nigeria’s SARS was all over Twitter. I don’t know much about the details of the SARS operation, but I understand they were supposed to be a body fighting this fraud stuff but ended up abusing their power or something.
The SARS situation is still problematic and in Nigeria, young people are a target in the hands of law enforcement. Infact, they don't even need you to own an iPhone, just be young and looking good. People are being killed on a daily by law enforcement agencies and sometimes, I feel it gets out of hand. The situation with yahoo cannot stop. More young people are getting into it and when they do, it becomes a really big problem for people who aren't into it.
It's hard crime, but in Nigeria every young person is paying the price for crimes of every practicing yahoo boy out there
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It’s a really sad thing what’s happening right now. Having to pay for someone else’s wrong doing even without being guilty. I would assume the body that created the SARS would keep them under check though so how did it get this bad?
What's funny is at times Sars aren't even looking to punish the wrong doers they just want to collect money
Nigeria's population, hardship and capitalistic structure made it the likely target for the growth of cybercrime. Check how India is a close second or is even first but not so much so criticized and popularised.
Another factor is that Nigerians brag about their fraud much more than any country ever can or will.
That's the biggest factor. This isn't to say any country is crime free, but the psychology, the Intent, the exposure and purpose of people who are into crime creates negative publicity for Nigerian and the remaining Nigerians. Plus, people and their get rich or die trying attitude has extended to people in the diaspora. If we begin to access it, we'll find out that there are so many underlying reasons why it's like this in our country.
Yeah, the rot goes far beyond the surface.
Do you know any people personally that make a full time living from socially engineering scams online?
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There are a lot around us. They don't even hide it, it's a way of life.
Exactly what I told him o
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I have a lot of them in the place where I went to college, and they're doing it with the backing of some police.
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The opportunities online are limitless and society as tailored it in a way that anything online is very bad and probably be a scam which is not true.
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In the estate or area where I live, if you're not doing 9 to 5, they basically feel you're a fraudster.
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It's too bad that the fraudsters removed crypto but I think fiat is still the main way of doing things. They will just find an alternative and I have heard there are people who will do the middleman work to transfer that money. So I don't think it solves anything. The government is slow and corrupt so I don't even know when they will be able to solve this issue. However, I just don't think it will because the scammers will adapt. Nobody likes those scammers and that is why I like a few of Mark Rober's videos on some of the payback.
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Fiat and crypto are both means of transaction, so none is exempted, but since the government feels crypto is uncontrollable to them, they'll rather just blame crypto for everything. You're right they're corrupt, but crypto seem to be the concentration for them.
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Internet fraudulent in so many ways. Finding love on social media. Many have betrayed their trust. Looking for business partner or a big business owner. Hmmmm, before now some guys guy them but now the opposite is the reality. Those who are trying to steal from others end up losing what they have. Lol. A Man pretending to be a woman. A lot has happened
Finding love on the social spaces used to be something people were comfortable of doing, it didn't come with any sinister agenda, but nowadays, it's a different ball game entirely.
Finding love on the social spaces used to be something people were comfortable of doing, it didn't come with any sinister agenda, but nowadays, it's a different ball game entirely.
You are right
Thank you for sharing your insights on the evolution of internet fraud in Nigeria. It's alarming to see how these scams have become more sophisticated over the years and how they can manipulate people's emotions and vulnerabilities to get what they want. It's important for individuals to be aware of these tactics and to be cautious when interacting with people online, especially when it comes to sharing personal information or giving money.