How I Lost Everything: A Costly Lesson in Taking a Careless Risk

In life, people have taken different types of risk to either get rich or to gain fame. Taking risk has never been a convenient thing for anyone but sometimes you just have to take that leap of faith in other to move to the next level or you end up regretting it all the rest of your life.

source

But one thing that we should always have at the back of our minds is that risk varies. There are risk that are careless risk, calculative risk and dangerous risk.

In my own case, I had know idea that the risk I was about taking was a careless risk. I know you might be interested to hear how it happened…. Just sit down and relax but before doing that let me invite @uduak3287, @simonnwigwe and @radleking

Some years ago, there was a buzz all over Port Harcourt, Rivers State, about a Forex company that traded with your money and, at the end of the month, gave you a 15% return. The name of the company was “MBA Forex.” I was skeptical about joining at first because of the horrible experience I had with Ponzi schemes.

I had some savings lying idle in my bank, so I decided to try it out with 100,000 naira. A few things encouraged me to invest with them: I knew people who made good returns just by trading Forex on their own, so I saw the CEO as a professional since he owned a school where he taught people how to trade.

(AI image)

In his case, he had several physical offices, with headquarters in my state, and the CEO was also from my state. At least, if anything went south, we had someone to hold accountable. If only we knew he was a slippery fish, we wouldn’t have ventured into it. I moved to Abuja in search of job opportunities, and throughout the six-month period I was there, the 15% return was one of the things sustaining me. This was during the peak of Covid-19.

The CEO then sent a memo to all his esteemed customers that he would no longer accept investments below $1,000 and that he was going to return everyone’s money that was below that amount. I was in Abuja when I got my initial deposit of 100k back. I had a feeling it was going to crash since it was the Covid period and everywhere was on lockdown.

To the surprise of Nigerians, even during the lockdown, he kept on paying people’s returns, but unknown to everyone, it was all a trap. I was on their Facebook platform and saw different people celebrating that they had just received their alerts for the month. I called my friends to confirm if they had received their alerts, and they all acknowledged it.

That single act of paying everyone during lockdown convinced the public that this man was trustworthy and knew what he was doing. Within that short period, the crowd that came to the headquarters to register was so large that he had to open six extra MBA FOREX offices just to collect our money.

In my case, I was in Abuja and felt left out. $1,000 was around 400,000 naira at that time. I told my ex-girlfriend, whom I wanted to marry, about my plans. She didn’t agree with them. I felt she was against it because the money I wanted to use was our marriage money. I was stubborn and went ahead anyway. I told my aunt that I was moving back to Port Harcourt because I had been in Abuja for six months and still didn’t have a job.

She begged me to give her more time, but I refused—my mind was fixed on MBA Forex. My aunt knew I was just moving back to Port Harcourt because of that investment, and she did everything possible to discourage me, but nothing could stop me this time. For me, this risk was an easy way out that would allow me to stop job hunting and receive my 15% return every month.

(AI image)

I took my luggage and headed straight to Port Harcourt. I decided to wait an extra month because it wasn’t easy convincing my ex to allow me to use the money. That month, I saw a few complaints in the comment sections from people who hadn’t received their money, but I immediately ignored them when my friends told me they had received theirs.

My ex-girlfriend, after hearing their testimonies, gave me the go-ahead. Instead of investing 400k, I became greedy, cleaned out my account, and invested 1 million. I told myself, “No risk, no reward.” I had no idea I was digging my own downfall. I went to their headquarters and realized they had moved it to Abuja. All this was part of his grand plan to escape, but foolish me refused to see sense and went ahead with the risk.

( Ai image)

The crowd that came to invest was so large that I had to return the next day, very early in the morning, to get it done on time. I invested and went back to sleep like a baby, believing that in a few months, I would recover all my money. A month later, the complaints that started as a whisper became a loud echo. People were no longer getting paid. Hearts were breaking like fragile plates.

I was in my house praying every day that “affliction shall not rise again, the second time,” believing that when my time came, I would get my money. My time finally came, and I didn’t get my money. I started running to and fro from their offices like someone who had escaped from a psychiatric ward.

The lives of the workers were now at risk because they couldn’t provide our money, and their boss was nowhere to be found. Two months later, the man came online with a short video explaining how the company had been facing financial difficulties since the Covid-19 pandemic and how the federal government had been on his neck for lying to customers that his company was registered with them. He begged us to give him some time.

Nigerians weren’t patient. They went to his residence, but unfortunately, it was empty. He had already escaped with his wife and kids to Abuja. People started protesting, beginning at his church, then his house, and down to his companies. Staff were scared for their lives and refused to come to work. The CEO was in Abuja, but no one could find him because he didn’t have a home there. It was a premeditated attempt.

source

After numerous lawsuits against him, the government finally declared him wanted. He escaped with a sum of 213 billion naira—the biggest Ponzi scheme in Nigeria. As for me, I lost my girlfriend. She is now happily married. I had to start working as a waiter in a restaurant because I had lost everything, all because I took a stupid risk that could have been avoided if I had listened to advice.