A single parent mother of two is warning others to be wary of a scammer who managed to cheat her out of $50,000 in phone credit on the pretext that she had won $1 million through a Bank of Guyana (BoG) and Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) contest.
“I know I can’t get back me money but I just want people to know about this scam and so they can’t fool anybody else,” the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Stabroek News yesterday.
The woman said her daughter’s phone rang around 9 am on Monday and a man, who identified himself as a “Keith Singh,” supposedly a manager at the BoG, informed her that the child’s number was selected by GTT to be awarded $1 million.
He informed that before she could access the money, she had to get $50,000 worth of credit.
“He mek it sound like it real. He tell we to say, ‘I love the Bank of Guyana’ three times and then say we win. I tell he how I is a single mother and I don’t have that money but he tell me to try and get the money so I could get the one million,” the woman said.
When she told him that she was in New Amsterdam, he informed her that the Bank of Guyana had no branch in the township and that the money would be transferred through Republic Bank. He said a manager, identified as “Romel King,” would give her the money.
“All I had was $15,000. Was my daughter graduation money what she work for in work study and we put it on the bank for she to get her stuff up. And I tell he that bit. He said I must try and get more money and she was excited too, because she think we win the money so we went to the bank and tek it out,” the woman shared.
She said she pawned a gold chain she had for $25,000 and used $10,000 her son had given her to bank to purchase the $50,000 worth of phone credit.
She said the man also called them to check on their progress.
“We call and he collect all the number [for the phone cards] over the phone and then he tell we to go Republic Bank and he tell we what to write down on a paper to get the money. But when I went up to the teller, the teller tell we they don’t know anything about that. Then I call he back and he say the manager coming and I must go next to the security and then he tell me move from next to the security and like is then I realise this man scamming we. I go outside and I call he back and I say, ‘Hear, I is a single mother and God will deal with you.’ And he said ‘Hear nuh, hear nuh listen to this song’ and I just hang up the phone,” the distraught woman said.
She is now at pains to find the money to purchase her daughter’s needs for her upcoming graduation.
“Right now, I have no, no money and we don’t know how we making it. I don’t know where I would get $25,000 from to get back me chain. This is just so wrong and I know I can’t get back me money but I don’t want them to do it again to somebody else,” the woman lamented.
No report was made to the police.
