FAKE MZUNGU

 I was minding my business on Facebook the other day when I got a friend request from some German guy. This came as a surprise because why would anyone want to be my friend on Facebook? I hardly comment on anyone's pictures and the last time I posted a picture on my page was a little over two years ago. 

Anyway, being the social person that I am, I accepted the friend request and we started chatting in my inbox. I checked his page to see who some of his friends were but lo and behold, they were just a few Kenyan young ladies. Red flag number one. I continued chatting with the guy regardless and on the third day we had already exchanged contacts and moved from Facebook to WhatsApp.

We exchanged pictures and he told me he was an engineer living in London, a divorcee and a father to a 10 year old boy. The country code on his phone number was that of Panama instead of  from the UK. Red flag number two. Our conversations had to continue even though they were so dry and only comprised of the weather and if each of us had eaten. He gradually started calling me pet names like dear and sweetheart and as the street saying in Kenya goes 'mimi ni baby girl' , I never bothered to tell him not to refer to  me using pet names, I am a baby girl after all.

At the back of my mind I knew something was off but I was also curious to know what this German guy had rolled up his sleeve. So I continued entertaining him. This guy had the audacity to tell me that his parents were both dead and him being the only child he had to endure immense loneliness  coupled with the fact that he was now in a foreign country. He even went as far as asking me if I would like to go to the UK. Excuse me! I would love to.

One evening, out of nowhere my German friend sends me a message in WhatsApp saying that he would love to buy me a gift. Red flag number three. I do not understand why he wants to buy me a gift but I go with the flow. If he wants to buy me a gift and ship it all the way to Kenya well and good. He asks for my full name, contact and address which I give. He also asks for my shoe-size and I give him, gladly. 

Afterwards things get interesting. I knew I was right to stay for the ride. A day later he sends me a video of the supposed gifts, two pairs of shoes, a handbag, gold-coated necklaces and watches and apparently USD 10,000 stuffed in a brown envelope. Red flag number four. Unbelievable. I do some quick mathematics and I come to the conclusion that upon conversion of the dollars to Kenyan shillings I would have roughly a million shillings. Just like that I would enter the elite millionaires club, I would be one of the big girls, never mind I have not worked for the money.  Generous German tells me he has already shipped the gifts and they will arrive in Kenya the next day. In the meantime I relax.

At about 10 AM on a Monday I receive a phone call from a man, Solomon, with a poorly done Nigerian accent. He says he works for a certain shipping company situated at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. He asks if I was expecting a parcel from London to which I reply in the affirmative. He asks for my location so that they can do home delivery. He proceeds to pressure me to send him Kshs. 10, 000 for customs clearance or whatever lie he just concocted, but what is Kshs.10, 000 when I will be getting a million shillings? I tell him that I do not have the money and he is relentless in his quest. I agree to send the money the following day and he gives a personal M-pesa number instead of the company's paybill number.

I proceed to ask my German buddy to send me money for the customs, I even tell him he can send the money via Paypal. This guy actually tells me he cannot send me money because he is far away and he is also not allowed to send money out of the country. He is also nagging me endlessly asking whether I have already sent the money. All this while I knew I was dealing with a bunch of unscrupulous con-artists but I stayed on because I wanted to get the satisfaction of telling them off.

Later on I had my moment with the fake German guy albeit via WhatsApp messages. I told him he could have his gifts shipped back for all I cared and that I had known all along that I was dealing with a con-man and I would not fall victim to his shenanigans. The devil clearly works overtime but this time his efforts were futile.

I learned through Facebook that many Kenyan women had fallen victim to this kind of scam and lost money in the name of online love. These swindlers are mostly African men preying on desperate women hungry for interracial romance.