Are lads that poor?

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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:14 pm

Whenever there's a safari, we always read lads saying they need to borrow money to get to wherever they're asked to go. And they cry that they are indebted because they had to borrow money or had to sell their stuff, after the scam breaks down.

I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade, but does anybody actually think a lad has to borrow money to take a bus? Or that they would sell their camera, cell phone, etc? Rolling Eyes

These guys are ripping people off left and right out of a lot of money, I think they can afford a bus ticket. The only reason they cry broke and indebted is to try to extract sympathy and more money out of their victims.

A safari does waste their time and money, but I'm sure they aren't taking out any loans or selling their possessions, or going hungry after it ends.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:15 pm

Some Lads might be that poor. I don't think you can ever state a general rule on Lad finances.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:20 pm

I don't think they are all filthy rich like the top scammers probably are. I'm sure a good percentage of them are not doing that well. But I can't see a piss-poor lad selling off his last possessions or taking a loan to chase some longshot dream.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:20 pm

Yea, Yastreb's right, you can't generalise. Some are really poor, and it does indeed put them into debt with their mates to get a bus. Others drive around in expensive cars.

It all depends on whether they're any good at it, how long they've been doing it, whether they have a good format, lots of factors really.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:23 pm

i also wouldn't be surprised if the ones that actually are on the safari are poor. I'd imagine that the better lads who have money wouldn't use up their own time and would instead find a poor lad go do it for them with the promise of part of the payoff.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:23 pm

Some lads are dirt poor, some have a lot of money, and the rest are somewhere in the middle, just like anywhere else in the world. However, being that they are basically thieves, I tend to think that most of them are rather poor. That is one of the reasons that scoring a safari is so tough to do. Of course, the more believable you and your story are, the safer the lads will feel about traveling.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:23 pm

Also the lad could be lying about borrowing money. I know, I know, hard to believe. But entirely possible.

They could have really borrowed the money too b/c I'm sure they're cheap bastards the lot of them in addition to being greedy.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:43 pm

Imagine a gang of lads. Are the lower ones going on the safari, or the ones that are further up the chain? At first I thought the lower ones would go, for the same reason budanzig mentioned, but wouldn't it be risky for the gang to lose a victim because of a poor sap who doesn't really know how to handle them?

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:48 pm

Mr Otto wrote:

... does anybody actually think a lad has to borrow money to take a bus? ...

Hey, they're scammers. If you were a scammer who wants as much money from a victim as possible, would you say 'sure. I'll just jump in my Mercedes and drive off to where ever'?

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:15 pm

If I had to choose:
a) Lad is broke and in debt, because he loaned money for a safari
b) An innocent person got scammed for ~$10000 and now his/her life is screwed up, he/she is in debt and they don't have a house.

A

EDIT: I personally think that they whine because they hope you will send them money because you may feel sympathy for them...dunno.
They might not be rich, but I don't think they sell their stuff everytime someone sends them on a cross-Africa tour.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:23 pm

It would be nice if the lads were really selling off their "toys." I mean...they got their phones and such by scamming, so why should they get to keep those things?

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:14 am

As mentioned above. In any culture you find the 3 social economic levels.

Mugus also range in this category. I had my lad sell his laptop to meet the
holy priests in another country.

As far the the mugus trying to rip you off, well....................... every chance
they get. There has not been one bait where the
lad will not ask for money.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:21 am

Im aware of the existence of "poor scammers".
I had a scammer who came up to me on the street and told me he needed to borrow $20 so he could (apparently) pick his daughter up from hospital and send her home because she has asthma etc...
I said no, walked away and went into a pub. 2 minutes later, that same person walked into the pub and put a $20 note into a poker machine. Shocked

He was then ejected from the bar and I heard that this person has been in and out of there all day begging money from people so he could gamble.
What is the point of stealing from someone, then throwing it away?

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:55 am

I hope they are poor but just to make sure send them on extra long safaris.
Internet time costs them about 100 naira and hour and to put that in perspective a manula labourer gets about 300 naira for a day.
Phone calls are also very expensive so the more often you can get them to call the better. Never call them but insist that they call you and then tell them inn very slow ponderous terms about everything under the sun.
Insist that they demonstrate their sincerity by calling regularly.
etc
Be assured, even a two minute call from a lad totally screws his budget for the day.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:57 am

We know for a fact that some safari lads had access to plenty of money as and when they needed it.

YW, Jojo, Red & Cachuma have all managed to get one or more lads to take an international flight. Now, that doesn't come cheap.

On the other hand I know that on more than one occasion I have had a stranded lad that had to sell his mobile so that he could afford the bus fare home.

They will always tug on the sympathy strings though, its like second nature to them.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:31 am

Most of the African based scammers seem to be fairly poor but I the European based ones certainly seem to be fairly rich. I have had some mugus going around Paris in a taxi trying to meet up with me for a couple of hours. Can't have been cheap.

p.s. I only have their word they were in a taxi but in context it did seem to be the truth. They were mighty aggravated when they could not track down my hotel.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:12 pm

Simba wrote:

On the other hand I know that on more than one occasion I have had a stranded lad that had to sell his mobile so that he could afford the bus fare home.

That's what I mean... do you really believe he sold his mobile phone? I just don't believe it.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:32 pm

@Otto - my guess is that some are real, some not. Has anyone actually obtained some sort of concrete, indisputable proof that a lad did sell something for a safari? Surely someone has...

Trophy Videos · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:06 pm

Rich or poor? A bit pf each. And most lads lie 100% of the time. Who cares? They all deserve the same treatment. Emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial pain, and lots of it! If it results in them stopping their scamming, good. If they end up in jail, even better. If the sharks get them during a church cleansing ritutal, oh well.... hehehe Twisted Evil

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:38 pm

Mr Otto wrote:

That's what I mean... do you really believe he sold his mobile phone? I just don't believe it.

In that instance, yes.
We had enough traces on that phone to know that it was being used in a different country to its former owner.

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:14 pm

Most of the lads that are doing these safaris are of the poorer genre. I know for a fact that one lad that I work with has borrowed a great deal of money for his adventures. He has sold a TV. He has borrowed money from his uncle for all sorts of things.

Other lads just complain about borrowing money. They do that because they don't want to travel. But typically, if they believe you enough, they will find the funds.

South African lads seem to have the most money of all of them. YW, BW and I had a SA lad who, without hesitation, sprung for a plane ticket from SA to Egypt. Once there, he bought himself a GPS locator and went on quite an expensive trip. It has been my experience that SA lads are the best equipped of all African lads. Nigeria and Senegal have seemed the poorest to me. However, Nigeria has so many, that may be a very inaccurate conclusion.

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:22 pm

Mr Otto wrote:

That's what I mean... do you really believe he sold his mobile phone? I just don't believe it.

Some scammers will happily drop their phone into a bin if they feel that they're being monitored... they just get new ones.

Reminds me of the line in Heat: (Robert DeNiro's character)

Quote:

A guy told me one time, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner."

Much of a succesful scammers life is disposable.

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 1:44 am

@ Mugatu --- that's a great line, and one that we should always bear in mind when dealing with the lads - I'm sure that's the rule they live by.

On the subject of mobile phones, how many does a well set-up lad have with him? And do they label them so that they know which alias to adopt when they pick them up?

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 2:33 am

Well not that I'm really up on these things, but I roamed around West Africa by land last year, sooo...from observations:

Quote:

On the subject of mobile phones, how many does a well set-up lad have with him? And do they label them so that they know which alias to adopt when they pick them up?

While most just carry one, I saw people with as many as three cell phones on them. The larger markets are full of them. But you really don't need a phone number for each "bait". There are phone card sellers on each corner. In Benin a SIM with nominal phone credit was about 8 dollars. A lad can have dozens of phone numbers just by swapping out the SIMs.

So a lad can easily sell his phone to another lad, pick up a shiny new one in the market, and keep the SIM and therefore his number.