Every day in Kenya, there emerges reports of a scam that has ripped off some hapless people millions, or even billions. In fact, these scams are so many it is difficult to keep track.
But basically, all the scams have one modus operandi; give us what you have and we will make your life better. It works like magic.
The enduring top of the league brand of these frauds, of course, is the Prosperity Gospel Scam. It is perpetrated by shady pastors and bishops. Kanyari. Ng’ang’a. Mum & Dad ( I forget their names), et all. If you tithe and plants seeds, then you will become rich. But of course we know who ultimately becomes rich and flosses being at the Dubai racetrack or the Table Mountain. And yet Kenyans keep flocking to their ‘churches’.
Closely related to the Church Scam is the Betting Scam. If you use the little you have, you will win billions. Julie Gichuru. Karauri et al. Billions? Where would they have come from to pay you? Of course from other scammed people like you, which is why your chance of winning is probably less than one in 500,000,000. You are more likely to become an astronaut than win the jackpot bozo! And yet you keep betting. And somehow, somehow, you don’t even know you are being scammed!
Kenyans being Kenyans, it doesn’t end there. There’s the Land Scam, perpetrated by the likes of Maina Kageni. Give us the few thousands you have and we get you prime land that’s gonna appreciate to 1 billion in two months. You don’t even need to visit it, it’s next to the Leakey’s and the Kibakis. Only they don’t tell you that the latter have hundreds of thousands of hectares and use their land for wildlife conservation, and having an eighth there is just pure BS. This scam is sometimes garnished as an investment thing. If you add another Sh400,000 we will build green houses for you, manage the farming, and you will make Sh600,000 a year just sitting your fat arse in Nairobi. FROM AN EIGHTH OF AN ACRE! Believe it or not, people still fall for the shit, don’t ask me how.
And then of course there is the cheap housing scam, perfected by the likes of Ekeza Sacco. Just enroll with us with Sh20,000 and in six months time we will give you a two-bedroomed house which you can pay for with your rent money. Of course it helps that the conman heading the scheme is a self-anointed Dr. Rev. Bishop So-and-So. He probably would have already scammed you with the seeds and tithes thing, so he knows the fools already. A variation of this of course is the more sophisticated off-plan fraud; you pay for houses that will be built in the near future, only they never are. Or, if you have land, pay us say 100K and we will build you your house on your land so you stop renting and you can pay us the rest later. Never ever happens, but more fools line up everyday to be conned. Totally amazing!
And if all the above is not enough there is the SACCO Scam. A clever dude opens a sacco, aggressively registers members and when he’s collected millions quietly disappears into the night. Unaanza kuskia watu wakisema serikali saidia. Remember DECI and the like? And it still goes on! The number of chini-ya-maji pyramid schemes going on currently may shock you. Incredibly, like moths attracted to the fire, fools keep getting burnt! Ni kama ngiri…
And it continues. There is the Job/NGO Scam. A phony NGO wants employees or foodstuffs. It asks for registration fees and some clueless unemployed Kenyan sends his last 5,000. Down river mara hiyo hiyo. Or the NGO hires some fake warehouses and you deliver tonnes of maize there. When 60 days are up you go to collect your payment and find everybody gone. It’s been going on for 20 years but somehow wateja bado wako.
The latest is what I would call the Confidence Scam. You see it all the time I social media with ‘celebrities’/’socialites’. Like the gospel fraudsters, they sell hype, and thousands buy it. I am a socialite, Arabs pay $10,000 a night for me, but since you are my fellow Kenyan you can ferk me for just 10K. You see, I paid 5m for my fake buttocks so I am not cheap. Or, I went to Havard and I am a billionaire and can help you make millions, you just have to pay the 40,000 coaching fee. Total BS. Surprise, surprise? THEY KEEP COMING, money in hand!
And still it doesn’t stop. There are the Kamiti phone cons, the multi-level marketing con, the partial holiday home ownership frauds where somehow you are supposed to earn millions as well as have a holiday home, the crptocurrency rip-off, the forex trading crap, the ‘I am a mzungu looking for African love lakini gari yangu imegonga ng’ombe ya Maasai nikikuja kukuona’ yarn spurn by the likes of @pur… (censored!), the century-old mercury old wives’ tale, and even the more recent ‘tuma fare’ Kuma Scam.
And yet Kenyans continue to fall for this shit every day. If you ever needed evidence of a low-IQ population, you don’t need to go far.
If you have fallen for any of this shit please don’t breed. Just take one for the team. Carry your ID, show it to the security people at KICC to gain entrance, climb to the 28th floor, and jump. That’s the best favour you can do this great country.
