Sorry, I didn't screen shot the caption, but it said they were giving out N500,000 to two people (250,000 each) and five consolation prizes of iPhone 7 to five people. The tasks were
1. Follow their page
2. Send a business proposal of N250,000
3. Give reasons why you should win
4. State ways on how to curb internet fraud
Number 4 made me conclude that were genuine. I saw the post a day to the deadline. I went to their page and saw they had about 3k followers as well as posts of phones. One thing that struck me on the page was that they turned off comments on all posts. I briefly wondered why and how people made enquiries, though they listed the phones they allegedly had and the prices under each post.
Well, I decided to send my proposal on mini importation, it didn't take me time because I already had great interest in it. I sent it via their dm as instructed and they replied that their team will go through it and get back to me. Few hours later, they replied with a link to a telegram channel, which they said would be deleted immediately after the giveaway.
These people bad oh! I really admire their tactics. They said their page of 64k followers was hacked so this was a way of getting back their followers. They even did some giveaways on the channel.
The two fake winners of 500,000 were later announced, and they said they will send DMs to the consolation prize winners by 12 midnight, and then the channel was deleted.
The next day, I awoke to a message from them, saying that I won an iPhone 7. I should come to their store in Kebbi state to pick up or send someone there on or before a certain date (in about three days). I told them I couldn't do either, so they said they do home deliveries via courier for N2,950.
My younger brother advised against it, he said it's scam while my husband said I should take it as a gamble. Me, I had made up my mind to pay. N2,950 made it look genuine to me as it wasn't a round number. I sent the money, the proof of payment and full house address. They even asked for landmark, I sent. Chaii.
After they verified receipt of payment, they told me the date to expect my package.
I didn't recieve anything on the specified date. A day later, while on instagram, I noticed that my conversation with them was nowhere to be found. I searched for the page to no avail.
Lo and behold, my brother was right. That was the cleanest scam. Imagine scammers giving you assignment on how to curb internet scam...
Later, I search for the company name (Ultralite digital enterprise) on Google, and saw a tweet that indicated that they had done this about a month before as @360mobile.ng
You might say 2,950 naira is not much. But if about 200 people paid this, that brings the total to about 590,000 naira.
So, what prompted me to write this today? I was on instagram today, and saw that they are back under a new disguise to scam another set of unsuspecting Nigerians! I have reported this page and I advice you do too and also help spread the news.
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