Adekanmbi Adetoun, a health worker in Lagos State, has explained how a shoe vendor defrauded her of N9,500 she paid for a pair of pink shoes on Facebook on December 19, 2022.
Adetoun told FIJ that she saw an ad placed on Facebook by business page Collection by AW for shoes of different sizes and shades and decided to go for one of them, only to be ripped off by the woman behind the page.
The health worker further said the delivery date was December 24 but the order wasn’t delivered despite her inquiries.
She said the woman claimed she had no shoes in stock when contacted on Facebook, promising to get back once they were available.
“The first payment I made into her Firstmonie Wallet on December 16 was reversed. So, she provided me with a Palmpay account number on December 19 and I successfully sent her N9,500, which included a delivery fee,” Adetoun told FIJ.
Speaking further on her experience with the vendor, Adetoun said, “Shortly after she confirmed the payment, she stopped chatting with me. I then reached out to her on December 24 when she was supposed to deliver my order, but she didn’t reply until December 28 following another message, and she asked me to resend proof of payment, which I did.
“She told me she was out of stock and would inform me once they were ready. Again, my message on January 2 asking to know the specific delivery date was not responded to.
“After I requested for a refund via her Facebook page, she blocked me on all social media handles and her number is not connecting till now.”
Adetoun lamented the fraud saying, “It is painful. I have learnt a bitter lesson of my life. She must have scammed other people too.”
Newsmen’s efforts to contact the vendor for comments proved abortive as all her known phone numbers were either unreachable or switched off.
She also blocked this reporter after reading a message he sent to her on WhatsApp.
FIJ also ran some searches on Truecaller, a caller identity storing app, on the phone number she used as account numbers on Firstmonie Wallet and Palmpay.
The Firstmonie Wallet showed ‘C.e.o Stephs Apparell’. On WhatsApp, she bears ‘Fashion House’.
Further checks showed that she had duped other people of different sums under the guise of selling shoes on Facebook.
Attempts to check her Facebook page on Sunday revealed that the account was unavailable.
A lady by name Taiwo Folusho Olugbodi said, “Chai, [I] have been scammed of 18k. I checked my Messenger now and noticed that [I] have been blocked.”
Sandra Osas also commented, “Me too oo. I have also been scammed 19k since December 5 and she has blocked me on Messenger.”
In Dunsin Olakunle’s case, she said, “Hello, good afternoon. Please I just got scammed by collection by AW of N13500, I purchased nightwear for kids. I have their account details and phone number even though the number isn’t going through but it’s active on WhatsApp. How can you help me?”
