Since the days of Kenyatta ma 1970s, 80s 90s mpaka leo there are thousands of stories of peasants and rich folk who have fallen victim to witty cons of the concrete jungle.
Here is what happened to me in 2002 just after finishing colle.
How I Got Conned 18 years ago
I had traveled from Nakuru to NRB because I was in dire need to upgrade my phone from a Siemens A35 to an advanced Nokia 3310. I bought the phone hapo Ibrahims the proceeded to Kencom hapo inje ya Hilto to explore the features of my new 3310 Nokia. A short while later a guy comes and sits about a meter from me on those concrete seats, his shirt collar was torn from what looked like a struggle. So approaches me and tells me that he just came from Embu to cash in a Sweepstake ticket worth Ksh 100,000 but he had been tricked by some guys at tea room and was almost robbed but escaped. He showed me the ticket and sure enough he had a Genuine ticket. So he asked me to cash it for him because his ID had been been lost in the struggle. But to make for him to make sure that I won’t run away with his Ksh 100,000 ticket Ihad to leave something with him, so he suggested my phone, I had just bought it 1 hour ago for Ksh 12,500. I didn’t think twice (LOW IQ) I gave him my phone.
Off I went to Kenya Charity House just behind Hilton Hotel. ndio huyo mimi kwa mpaka kwa reception. Huyo mother wa reception akaniitisha ticket ajaze details ndio akaniambia it is a genuine ticket but serial number has been tampered with and so it is invalid and NULL! Kijasho kikanitoka, my legs got weak nikatoka kwa hiyo building back to the concrete seats, Jamaa was missing. There and then nikapoteza brand new Nokia. Iliniuma mwaka mzima.
What is your con story coz kila mtu ako nayo?
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Hehehe mtalijua jiji
Mi ile najua watu wamefanyiwa sana ni ile a smartly dressed dude or lady drops a bunch of notes then a stranger picks it and asks you to go share the loot. Before you know, he has vanished with your valubles and you remain with a bunch of cleanly cut newspapers
So ilikua kwa olx…alikua anauza galaxy s7 edge at 15k but we agreed 13k…so I set off for tao akanishow tumeet afya centre…so venye tulimeet apo akaanza kunitembeza towards a certain building nyuma ya afya…so akaanza kusema ati iyo galaxy s7 edge ameshauza juu kuna mse ali offer more for it…but akanishow akona galaxy s9 plus and akanipea niisorore…I mean seriously, the moment I saw iyo phone I lost it…niliitamani sana…the phone was fully functional and I could determine it was original (am good at that)…nkaanza kubargain for the s9 akasema 18k mwisho…he then dropped to 15k…nakwambia I couldn’t believe I was only 2k away from getting galaxy s9 (guys don’t blame me for not seeing the deal was too good coz I wasn’t even thinking) he finally accepted iyo 13k so nkaenda kwa mpesa kumtolea doh…and so I did alaf inside iyo building kuna some shops but it’s a bit dark…so nkampea doh and akanipasia phone in a manner as if watu hawafai kuona (I didn’t care much about that) nlislide the phone inside my pocket and akanishow ni exit the building from the other side since he claimed “hao wasee hawafai kuona tunafanya biz ya phone” he went in the opposite direction. …I was so excited nikarush to the stage as if staki uyo mse achange mind akujie phone. …nmeingia kwa gari kutoa simu kwa mfuko nkifinya power button ilikua solid stuck…I looked at the back of the phone and I realised I could open the back cover (this is odd since galaxy s9 has a unibody design which means hueza pop it’s back open)…After kufungua nyuma mungu wangu…ilikua empty inside with a metal to add to the weight and some few coins…iyo image inani hunt mpaka sai…nkatoka kwa gari mbio back to the place where we met …mtu tao angefikiria me ni wazimu looking at my face…nlirudi home feeling so stupid…am trying to get over the incident.
Kuna mzee aliconiwa ama tuseme kunyang’anywa doh hapo karibu Mathare Hospital.
Here is how it went down.
An aged man from upcountry came to town in the early 2000s. Those days hakukuwa na Mpesa so people ferrired around huge sums of cash. So it happened that this old man was being spied up by some youths. He went into a bank akatoa doh mingi akasunda kwa koti yake akatoka akaboard mat hapo Tom Mboya ya kuelekea sides za Thika Road. Wale mavijana pia wakaingia kwa hiyo matatu wakajiseti. Ilipofika Muthaiga mmoja wa vijanaa akasema wanataka washukishe baba yao hapo Mathare Hosital coz anarukaga kichwa na sometimes huwa violent. So gari ilipofika hapo stage ya Hosi ika stop mzee na wanawe washuke. Mzee akaanza kuleta fujo eti hataki kwenda hosi, so hata conductor akasaidia vijana kumtoa. Huyo mzae iliporwa 400K na hao majamaa
Yangu ilihappen when i was in campus. the early days of olx. i was looking for a new place to impress my new catch! i found a nice sq unit at sore drive in south b. it was going for 12k. i quickly called the number, a nice sounding middle aged woman. she advised me to pay for the house immediately because some somali guy had interest in it too. the naive me quickly raised 24k (rent+deposit) and headed there to get the key. Long story short, at 6pm, i realized that i had been finessed! my cash-strapped self wanted the earth to swallow me alive
We are almost conned 1m back in 2012.
By then there was fax:
A guy sent an LPO in Uchumi Supermarket letterhead. It was actually to my attention, and the order was for 2,000 reams of foolscap paper @500.
By then Uchumi was doing great.
Nikakimbia kwa boss kumuonyesha order and he was very impressed. We got a place to buy the reams at 300. Faster faster the order was placed. We were to make a clean 400k. No sweat. I was to get 10% commission (100k)
Something told me to confirm the PO with my contact at Uchumi.
‘Order gani’ The guy asked.
‘Ile ya foolscap’…
‘Hakuna order kaa hio nimeweka’.
Wah!
We immediately cancelled our order with the supplier but played along with the conman asking him to pick the order the following day.
He never showed up.
Must have been an inside job at Uchumi or in our company. We didn’t follow up with cops but we were none the wiser…
Mine happened early this year.
I was going to kamua some singomatha huko namba nane past gachie when I noticed a young girl in a full school in uniform crying kwa stage tao.
The uniform was of a school from my subcounty and my uncle is the principal.mimi na kiherehere yangu I approached the girl to inquire what’s the matter.
The girl claimed she is waiting for her mother.aliniomba simu and dialed a number, called but no one picked.
She said her name was Mary.The number she dialed came up as “mama Mary” in true caller app. I gave her 100 for fare.
I boarded a matatu hapo eastmatt tom mboya St…mat kufika ngara,mzee mzito shouted loudly at the makanga “Zima mziki,mwizi ameniibia tenje”
It happened so fast…all I remember is the mzee was given some phone by some passenger to dial “his” number.
My phone rang,it was taken,two hot slaps, kicked out of a moving bus,simu na wallet kwisha enda…
My half bro who works for latema Sacco tracked the thief plus makanga and served them some beatings.
I have been conned twice by people in that town. Some serious money. I can’t go into minute details but can only say ni wale watu wakulete watu by panya routes. Trying to import my kazos…yawa. The 1st con happened so easily…and that is because I had been given the contact details by friends here who had been successful. I swore never again as I should know better.
2nd con was by a 1st kazo who had now joined the ‘bizna.’ He reassured me how he would never let us down blablabla…walahi he collected enough cash and flew his family to the USA. Karma is a v bad biatch. They reside there na hawana papers. The kazo I was trying to help is happily settled in Jamu, has a kayoung sweet family and a steady job and am glad he never made it there…nothing worse than being in these countries bila what we call ‘status’.
By @Mzee Wenger
I went through the exact same ordeal last year. Mine was an iPhone 8 and the transaction ili happen hapo Mr. Price. I lost 26k. I was so disturbed till I wasn’t able to write down the hekaya here. But I remember the bastard’s face. Hii Nairobi ni ndogo. Tutapatana siku moja. I still have the plastic iPhone btw.
By @mozilla
It was my second semester first year,mm nmetoka shags n coming to nai was a big deal,I had managed to convince my grandma to buy me a laptop n ilikuwa core I 3, worth 30k at the time,(2yrs ago).later on my friend happened to be selling his core I 7 at 23,000.I decided to sell mine @28 n buy his which was cheaper n would spare me some pocket money.nkaingia olx nkapost n I got many calls n I settled for a guy claiming to be in kca uni.he d buy it at 28k…we decided I’d take it to him the following morning.that morning he called me early n said’uko wapi? Kuna machine nmeletewa hapa na ni mzee sana ebu let’s hiyo yako niione’ so nkapigia cuzo yangu anipeleke nkauze machine.tuliagree na huyo msee tupatane muthaiga stage for security reasons.so tukatoka na cuzo tukaenda,tukafika muthaiga tukapigia the buyer akadai anakam ivo na ako na gari.akafika stage ya muthaiga wakiwa wawili kwa viti za mbele,wakadai tuingie tukakataa.then they both came out of the car wakasema wakague machine,tukawapatia wakakagua with one of them telling us stories mob na at I anawork apo oil Libya bla bla,.finally wakasema lapi ni poa akaigia jacket kutoa pesa.akatoa akahesabu zikakosa kufika 28k,akarudi kwa jacket only this time to pull out a gun…I froze,cuzo na yeye aka rudi nyuma akatrip akaanguka chini,the guys jumped in to the car n sped off…mm nliachwa hapo na charger na bag na foam kwa mdomo…cuzo was hurt but akamanage kuamka akaniambia lapi imeenda…we went apo nyuma kwa AP police wakatwambia hiyo ni case ya Tisa ya olx kuletwa hapo hiyo siku,wakatushow twende pangani Cid which we did…hatukusaidika so I just returned to my house n started weighing options niende kwa mganga am a niuze kidney n buy machine mpya…all in all singeambia cush juu angekua heart broken,I borrowed my friends laptop nkafanya online wiki mbili doe zikatoka afterward n I bough a new one…n life went on
Kuna mzee ashawai nicon OLX and i felt stupid kabisa.
I was selling a Huawei phone, so i posted on OLX. The mzee called and told me he wants to buy it. We agree to meet hapo commercial Nairobi. I get there and mzee tells me yuko hapo Accra hotel. I go there but I don’t find him. He calls and tells me yuko hapo nje karibu na choo za kanjo. I step out and finally meet him. He tells me tuingie a hotel/pub iko hapo next to the hotel. We go in and the first thing the mzee does is to remove his coat and hang it kwa kiti before sitting down. I gave him the phone, he looked at it and told me he wants to buy for his daughter. He asked if the charger is working, and I tell him yes, the phone is new. He told me he wants to test the charger and he moved towards the counter, which was away from the door.
I relaxed, waiting for the mzee to come back. Since his coat iko kwa hapo and the exit is next to me, I was not worried. But after 30 mins, the mzee was nowhere to be seen na simu yako. I tried calling his number and it was off. I moved towards the counter and asedk the cashier if the mzee left the phone charging, akaniambia hakuna mzee amewacha simu. I asked if there is another counter and she told me no. I walked around to the washroom and realized there is another exit. Nikajua nimeoshwa na muosho moja. I went back and checked the coat. It was still there, hanging. I checked the pocket and found a wallet filled with papers and a fifty shillings note covering the neatly arranged papers made to look like notes.I went home with the coat feeling very stupid