The New Year has already begun with its shenanigans. As I sat at home, minding my own business, a text comes through Whatsapp with a greeting. This was a foreign number and naturally, it perplexed me. I wanted to know who it was and he told me he was Romanian, but living in the UK. So how should I help him, I asked and his response was as stupid as it was annoying. He apparently found the number in his contacts and wanted to know me better. The code was Nigerian. I was exasperated at how an adult could make a fool of himself to get to know a person he already referred to as friend. Worse still, my number must have ‘waltzed’ into his phone because he was as surprised as I was, so he claimed, but I asked him to leave me alone. Romanian, living in the UK and using a Nigerian number. How low can anybody get?

Well, if they are any gullible people out there to question some of the red flags immediately when someone wants to con you, this is a typical example. I am not one to display my numbers willy nilly, especially on social media. However, con artists don’t wait for a number. They are predators who are resourceful. When such things happen, don’t start praising God and attributing this to the night of prayer you may have attended on the 31st. This is not a prayer answered, but demons preying on the unsuspecting.

Con artists are busy scheming new ways of robbing the unsuspecting. The latest is the claim that a relation is involved in a road accident and rushed to the hospital. Thieves will call you that your child, wife, husband or sister was involved in a road accident. It’s mostly parents being called about their children. They then claim the child needs urgent blood transfusion, bombarding them with phone calls to wire the money through any service provider to buy pints of blood. It is a syndicate and they will even be people posing as hospital staff confirming the urgency of the transfusion.

Recently, it was about relations aboard having sent goods and con artists calling random people to collect specified items. But before that, they would ask for money to help the process of bringing the items to the supposed owners. If it’s not that, many have been robbed in broad daylight by thieves posing as managers of Covid-19 relief funds or those claiming to have erroneously wired money into mobile wallets, seeking refunds.

This year, all must be alert. It is a New Year, but old habits die hard. Some will pose as potential suitors and angels to prey on one’s vulnerability and rob them. Others will lie just to make you pay them. The tricks are bound to grow bigger, wilder and sophisticated. Just don’t fall into these traps. When you panic, that’s when you are preyed. Be careful people

Carol

email :carso@mwnation.com

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