Whether Peter Ejiata Lucky is the same person as Taiwo Abdulazeez, whose Moniepoint account Ondo-based Moses Babajide credited with N81,000 on August 12, remains a mystery. However, what is certain is that Babajide would not have interacted with them if the former had not advertised a gas cylinder on a Facebook group.
Babajide’s father, who lives in Lagos, needed a cylinder to start a gas refilling business. So, when the Ondo resident saw the now-deleted advert on Ikorodu Fairly Used Items for Sale, a Facebook group, he reached out.
He would first engage the vendor privately on Facebook before they took the conversation to WhatsApp. Lucky provided two numbers: 09013881406 and 07084720226 for WhatsApp. And after they had reached an agreement, Babajide sent N81,000 on August 12, but he ended up not getting value for the money.
“I arranged for him to have it delivered to my dad in Ayobo from Magodo. I didn’t want to stress my dad moving the cylinder, so the seller agreed I book a Bolt ride,” Babajide told FIJ.
“After booking the ride, I informed the seller that the rider was en route. So he waited, and when the driver got to him, he put the cylinder in the boot of the car and sent me a picture,” the Ondo resident added.
Babajide said Lucky then shared a Moniepoint account number — 8191168506 — with the name Taiwo Abdulazeez Ipadeola for the N81,000 payment.
Because the name linked to the account number was different from the name of the person he had chatted with on Facebook, Babajide explained, he told him it looked like a Point of Sale (PoS) account details.
“He said that was his real name, and that he only uses the Facebook account for marketing. On the call, he told me it was his friend’s account,” said the buyer.
Then, after he sent the money to the account provided, Babajide got one of the greatest shocks of his life. The gas cylinder seller stopped answering his calls.
“I called, but he wasn’t picking up. I thought he was preparing a bill of sale or so, so I just stopped calling him. When I called the Bolt driver to ask if he was on his way already, he said the seller was still waiting for payment. I was confused because I already made the payment, so I told him,” Babajide told FIJ.
Right on the call with the driver, the Ondo resident disclosed, the vendor denied sending him Moniepoint account details. He said he sent OPay account details.
“I was confused. I looked at the chat again to see if I was the one who got it wrong, but no, I did not get anything wrong. He didn’t send me any OPay account number. He just said that to cause confusion between me and the Bolt driver,” Babjide narrated.
“The Bolt driver had to leave the place after the guy removed the cylinder. The vendor was no longer picking up his calls. The Bolt guy left and was calling me a scammer, and even insulted me for wasting his time. I had to send him N2,000 and apologised.”
Babajide struggled to understand what was unfolding on that August 12, and he even thought the driver connived with the vendor to scam him.
FIJ contacted the vendor on Saturday, and he did not deny receiving N81,000 from Babajide.
“A refund can be made. How can you assist in facilitating that? I can have a recall done on the account,” he told FIJ.
He also disclosed that Moniepoint had placed a lien on the account. Babajide told FIJ that he reported the transaction as fraudulent since he did not get value for the item he paid for.
As seen in the WhatsApp chats above, FIJ had explained to the vendor that he needed to fund the account with N81,000 before his bank could initiate a reversal to Babajide’s account.
He promised to do the needful between Tuesday and Wednesday. When the journalist messaged him on Wednesday afternoon, he responded, “I’d inform [you] when it’s done.”
When FIJ messaged him on Thursday morning for an update, after Babajide had first confirmed he had not received any money, the vendor claimed he was waiting on an inflow. “I promised to do, and I will,” he added.
Babajide had still not received his money, and the vendor was silent, on Friday.
FIJ later discovered that the WhatsApp number through which Babajide and FIJ contacted the vendor was no longer registered on the messaging platform.
Meanwhile, two days after the failed deal, the Ondo resident chatted with the vendor using an acquaintance’s Facebook account, and the seller said the cylinder was still available for sale.
“However, he claimed that it was at Ijegun. No longer at Magodo,” he said.
For Babajide, Peter Ejiata Lucky and Taiwo Abdulazeez could be operating an organised scam. He said, “If you notice the profile of that number, you will see it is for a business called RPM Garage LLC. If you check other numbers I was given as well, they belong to other businesses on WhatsApp.”
Babajide believes they probably use those businesses to lure people into thinking they are legitimate service providers.
For instance, the first number sent to him on Facebook is registered as a WhatsApp business account under the name “Ejiata Enterprises Limited”. The business is based in Abuja and it deals in electronics, real estate and property management.
