How my mom was almost conned 250K by ‘Orange Telecom agents’

My mother is a retired teacher and she owns about 5 acres of tea. Every October, tea farmers get their annual bonus and they all look forward to this windfall. Around that same time, con men and prostitutes are known to flock the tea growing highlands of Mt Kenya and Kericho

So, last year October, I received a call from my mother and she had GREAT news for me. Three people from Orange Telecom had come with their gadgets and they were scanning some place behind her house to check whether there is a network signal (Orange network). The three, two men and a woman were in Orange branded T-Shirts and a double cabin pickup truck.  The good news was, there was a very strong signal and they were going to erect a mast behind her house. They also told her that they had ‘scanned’ her neighbors’ plots and they also had very strong signals

She was then told they had all the paperwork and once signed, she would receive Sh 8 Million for the small piece of land where the mast would stand, then a monthly Sh 25,000 for the rest of her life. That sounded like a very good deal

After listening to the whole story, I told her to give the phone to one of the ‘Orange’ people so that he’d explain to me in more detail. So, the excited man tells me how my mom is lucky and how the deal would make her rich for the remaining days of her life. He also insisted that if she does not sign the papers, they would erect the mast on our neighbor’s land and give him all the money (my mom was also very excited and she didn’t want that money to go to her neighbors)

I have been conned a few times, so I am always very careful when people start talking big money. What made me very suspicious was how unprofessional the man was- he even had that Kanyari accent- actually he sounded more like Bishop Wahome (helicopter ministries). So I asked him, “Why do you want to erect the mast on my mom’s land so bad? Why can’t you just go to her neighbors’?” He told me that my mom seems like an honest woman and they would rather give the money to her than her younger neighbors.

But there was a catch: In order to release the Sh 8 Million in less than a week, some bosses at Orange needed a bribe of Sh 250,000. Otherwise, the whole process would take about three years Then, once the money was released, she was supposed to give the three people Sh 1 Million each. So she would be left with Sh 5 Million- which according to her was still a very good deal. She was ready to go to the bank and withdraw the 250k

I called her again and told her to go to a safe place so that we can talk. Then, I told her what I thought about the whole deal- that the three were not from Orange, they were con men and they were just after her Sh 250,000. My mom could not hear non of that! “Wako na T-Shirt za Orange na double cab!! I think they are genuine”

Long story short, she finally listened to her son and told them we’d give them a call after thinking about the deal. They never went to our neighbors and we have never heard from them ever since

Have you realized that if such a thing happens to you, that’s when you start hearing similar stories from other people who had similar experiences? After that incident, I narrated the story to a friend of mine and he told me that his dad, also a retired teacher was relieved off 300K