Coming from a society or a community where if one is attacked and they scream at night there will nobody to help them. Not because they didn’t hear you, but because they are afraid to run to your rescue only to find that it’s the gang which was screaming waiting for a good Samaritan who always spoils their deals to come and save the day, and that’s how you become a victim by good will. Most of us prefer to just stay indoors to pray for you and sympathize with your screams.
This is also the society where, if people see someone being mugged on the streets, they will never stop to help you out, not that they don’t feel pity for you but because they fear being associated with you by mistake where they will also be part of your unlucky day. To passerby its always a signal run for their life as first as they can. Where did morals go? Is this what happens even in our government offices? nobody to point fingers at wrong doings?
This does not only happen in the streets, it has affected the corporate industry, it has affected the services that we get, and it has also affected our mentality on how to approach certain things. I have encountered conmen’s in Nairobi, I don’t know whether they went to good schools than the ones we attended, but their intelligence is always top notch, they will always convince you by appealing to your human side and before you realize, you are already robbed, or you are in a situation that you cannot recover from.
A case of fake MPESA message and people decide to engage back? whose mistake is it? definitely the fraudster tries their best to ensure they win, and looking at the cases out there, they are always winners with a margin of almost 60%
A case of a simcard swap, yesterday one of my friends went to an MPESA shop to deposit 90,000 ksh so that she could pay school fees the next day. One hour later after the deposit, she receives a message on her phone of a request for a sim swap? “Dear Customer, we have received your SIMSWAP request. If you are not aware of this, please contact customer care” How? How do you swap your sim when you have just loaded 90 000 ksh? Is this even right? Can we say that this was just a random fraudster who guessed the number to perform a sim swap? how comes they are so intelligent to even know the loaded simcards?
I wouldn’t say it was a guess, which leaves me with a notion that theses fraudsters don’t work alone, its an entire group, from the most trusted people (financial institutions) to a normal person whom can never be suspected in the streets. This leaves me with a question, should we still trust agencies with our personal details?
Onto the other view, lets acknowledge the intelligence of this fraudsters, how do they send a message exactly like an MPESA message, like an MSHWARI message or even Airtel Money? are they that extreme intelligence to play with our psychology like that? Again, why are we always hungry with the thought of free money? I don’t think fraudsters are the ones to blame, I think its our thoughts that are slaves of money, in such a manner that when we see free money coming our way, our brain shuts down and we forget everything else. When we lose our money that’s when we reboot only to realize it’s too late.
It’s just competition, we all must thrive in this mean world, or should I say survival for the fittest? or maybe I should have titled this blog, “Why are we always hungry for free money”.
Note: This are my views and they are not influenced by anyone