Online fraud: Victim cries out after losing FCFA 500,000 to fake employers

By Tata Mbunwe

Some Cameroonians in Mali are using the online marketing name Qnet, mixed with promises of lucrative employment abroad, to extort money from their peers, a victim has said.

According to him, they use fake promises of lucrative job offers to drag people into a Malian online marketing business, Qnet.

After losing FCFA 500,000, the victim of an online maneuver has said he was deceived by fellow Cameroonians living in Mali.

According to the victim, his “predators” deceived him that “they work in Guinea Conakry in a big mining company called UMS. This company actually exists in Conakry but none of them ever set foot there.”

He was then asked to pay FCFA 500,000 and was told 200,000 will be used to create a bank account while 300,000 will be used to secure a Guinean residence permit.

His words: “… they collect the 500,000 and put it in Qnet without your knowledge. They will ask your information and put it on a paper, then make you to sign the paper without even reading. They intimidate you that you have to sign fast because they are in a haste.

“After some days, one of them will call you and tell you that you have been selected for the job and then give you a date to reach there.

“The person who made you know about the fake job will then tell you that you will need to be in Mali for some days to receive some training before the company can take you to Guinea. After some days of trying to brain wash you so you can like Qnet, they then tell you it’s network marketing and that there is no work in Guinea but Qnet business in Mali.”

According to him, this is a careful way of bringing people into the online business platform Qnet where “many Cameroonians are stranded there.”

“They equally lie about the compensation plan of Qnet. They said if you bring two persons and the other two persons bring their own two persons, you will be receiving 225 US Dollars weekly, which is fake.”

 Amid unemployment among youths, some persons have capitalized on young people’s desperate quest for jobs to make undeserving gain.

In a bid to make some money, some have recently hijacked services such as mobile money offered by mobile telephone companies to withdraw money from users in the name of the supposed company.