₦airaland Forum

Hello Nairalanders,

this is a sad story about how our hardworking people are being scammed daily by a group of Arab 419 experts.
They usually hustle you on arrival in Dubai but they have recently become more daring and taken their trade to Naija with our own people now working for them too.

DUBAI AIRPORT
Once a plane arrives from Nigeria, they have people who approach you at the airport where they have a stand to make them look legitimate. They ask if you want a free gift like a desert safari or a boat cruise. Who no like better?
They say you just have to listen to them for 2 hours and there are no obligations.

Once you are at their office, the scam artists start telling how Dubai is growing and you can own a share of a resort, apartment or hotel for 1-2 weeks a year. Now comes the best part. They say to you that you do not even need to stay there at all. They will rent it out for you at $1,000 a day so you will make serious profits.
All you have to do is pay a deposit now now now and then pay for the timeshare for about 2 years and it is yours for 99 years. Sounds great right? Your total annual investment will be about $1,000 but you will make $7,000 and pay only 30% as commission.
So as a typical Igbo man, I calculated my spending of $1,000 and returns of $7,000 minus 30% which is only $2,100.
Profit without any effort is $3,900.
Since we know Dubai has high standards and low crime, we checked them up and they sounded okay all round.

Here is the trick: they can NEVER rent the place for $1,000 a night so they tell you they cannot guarantee rental in the contract. Indeed, they never intended to rent the place for you.
When you complain, they say it is only for holidays since rental is not guaranteed. This leaves the poor, hardworking family to now be saddled with a $1,000 a year charge and a 1-2 week room you cannot use because of the extra travel cost. Remember you can get a room in Dubai for as little as $50/night.

Now the best part of it all is that because Dubai 419'ers know you cannot afford to come to Dubai and enjoy the room yourself, they simply rent out the apartment for themselves, make a cool amount of money daily and force you to pay the annual fees or lose your investment totally. This is so cruel that we have to petition the Nigerian Government to protect its people like the UK government has been doing for many years from Spanish and other timeshare scams (See
http://www.timeshareconsumerguide.org/newsletterjune.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/lastcompanieslist/
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/timeshare-holiday-clubs/
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20588
http://www.timeshare.org.uk/scams.html
http://www.timeshare.org.uk/holicon.html (Timeshare Consumers Association).

We want to petition the Honourable Minister of Tourism and other agencies, travel agents, etc.
If you too have been affected by this Dubai scam, please please get in touch as we need strength in numbers.
This is how the English people got out of their own mess before the big hotel brands like Hilton brought honesty and sanity into this Time-Share programme which, if done honestly, helps everyone.

Brothers and sisters, please reply to this post in support and advice on how we should tackle these people.
If it were Nigerians doing this, they would have taken it to CNN by now.

Please send an email to info@iamnigerian.com with your name and Contract Number if you too have been a victim of these scam artists. Your case will be treated with all confidentiality necessary.

Thanks DD

Hello Nairalanders,

this is a sad story about how our hardworking people are being scammed daily by a group of Arab 419 people. They hustle you either in Nigeria or on arrival in Dubai.

ABROAD - DUBAI AIRPORT
Once a plane arrives from Nigeria, they have people who approach you at the airport where they have a stand to make them look legitimate. They ask if you want a free gift like a desert safari or a boat cruise. Who no like better?
They say you just have to listen to them for 2 hours and there are no obligations.

Once you are at their office, the scam artists start telling how Dubai is growing and you can own a share of a resort, apartment or hotel for 1-2 weeks a year. Now comes the best part. They say to you that you do not even need to stay there at all. They will rent it out for you at $1,000 a day so you will make serious profits.
All you have to do is pay a deposit now now now and then pay for the timeshare for about 2 years and it is yours for 99 years. Sounds great right? Your total annual investment will be about $1,000 but you will make $7,000 and pay only 30% as commission.
So as a typical Igbo man, I calculated my spending of $1,000 and returns of $7,000 minus 30% which is only $2,100.
Profit without any effort is $3,900.
Since we know Dubai has high standards and low crime, we checked them up and they sounded okay all round.

Here is the trick: they can NEVER rent the place for $1,000 a night so they tell you they cannot guarantee rental in the contract. Indeed, they never intended to rent the place for you.
When you complain, they say it is only for holidays since rental is not guaranteed. This leaves the poor, hardworking family to now be saddled with a $1,000 a year charge and a 1-2 week room you cannot use because of the extra travel cost. Remember you can get a room in Dubai for as little as $50/night.

Now the best part of it all is that because Dubai 419'ers know you cannot afford to come to Dubai and enjoy the room yourself, they simply rent out the apartment for themselves, make a cool amount of money daily and force you to pay the annual fees or lose your investment totally. This is so cruel that we have to petition the Nigerian Government to protect its people like the UK government has been doing for many years from Spanish and other timeshare scams (See ).

We want to petition the Honourable Minister of Tourism and other agencies, travel agents, etc.
If you too have been affected by this Dubai scam, please please get in touch as we need strength in numbers. This is how the English people got out of their own mess before the big hotel brands like Hilton brought honesty and sanity into this Time-Share programme which, if done honestly, helps everyone.

Please reply to this post and but also send an email to info@iamnigerian.com with your name and Contract Number. Your case will be treated with all confidentiality necessary.

Thanks DD

Why anyone would think they need a salary beats me. Unless you are earning a huge salary, there is hardly anything you will do in this country that will not give you more than your salary.
The only thing I will say is, plan first and do it in 5 steps:
1. Plan to become self-employed in 12-18 months.
2. Do your research (don't be a copycat) and decide on the one thing to start with and do more research.
3. Understand your initial capital requirements and work out a plan to part save and part finance
4. Stay focused and start in bits if possible. Network as much as possible, attend conferences, seminars, speak with people in the industry and other key stakeholders like government.
5. Stick to your plan, save 30% of your earnings monthly even if it (almost) kills you and hand in your notice at the right time.

Of course it helps if your employer is downsizing and is asking for volunteers for early retirement so you can get a nice pay-off. Good luck
DD