Johannesburg – They are all over like a pack of pubic lice. My inbox is teeming with friendship requests from South Africans claiming to be living it up in Dubai or California.
They all claim they can afford their glamorous lifestyles because they invested in the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
They pose next to their luxury cars in their expensive clothes and post motivational messages about how easy it is to make money without breaking a sweat. The caveat, of course, that is no sooner than you’ve accepted their requests than they start wooing you to invest and make a quick buck.
I have fobbed so many of them off but they keep coming. I don’t know even a single one from Adam. The alarming bell is that their social media accounts are almost always fairly new and they have few friends.
Frankly, I never thought so many of my countrymen and women were nestled in that citadel of opulence in the Middle Eastern desert.
I suspect that these are scammers with laptops, whose intent is to fleece us of our hard-earned cash.
With most people buckling under financial pressures, there must be many who are oblivious to their machinations and likely to fall into their clutches. I have done my own research into bitcoin and I know that its value has increased exponentially and many people have hit pay day.
However, I’m always baffled that someone I’ve never met in real life would be interested in making me rich. For starters, I’m a believer in hard work to make my living. I rely on blood and sweat to put food on the table.
The whole idea of entrusting my money to some virtual person in expectation of doubling or tripling my returns stinks to the heavens.
I’d rather plant spinach and carrots and sell them to my neighbours. That’s called honest living and while it’s unlikely to buy me a Bentley soon, I’ll be fulfilled that my green fingers provide nutrition.
The modus operandi of these bitcoin advisors is to entice us with their glamorous lifestyle. I’d still like to take a cruise ship and surf the Mediterranean one day, and I’ve figured I could afford the excursion by simply writing a bestseller and likely scoring movie rights with Netflix or Showmax.
Therefore, I deem it rotten to the core for strangers to sneak into my inbox in the hope that I’d fall into their trap. One of them got so angry with my responses that he wished me eternal poverty.
“You have been missing a lot because this is how a lot of people make money these days. Do you know you can make up to R80 000 in seven days of trading?” was how one of them tried his luck with me.
Another binary peddler had the guts to post the pictures of Durban tycoon and reality TV star, Shauwn Mkhize as her own. I could smell a dead rat from a mile away.
At least you can get rid of pubic lies with Jeye’s Fluid.
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