In my last post, I narrated my encounter with a patient who was scammed by some quacks (“Neo-Life” agents). And a few people posted replies, narrating how they’ve had similar experiences with these con artists.
Now, I’d be revealing the tactics these people use on unsuspecting Nigerians, so you won’t fall for them.
They bring their “services” to your comfort zone
One common reason Nigerians cite for being reluctant to seek medical care in the hospitals is the time-consuming and energy-sapping protocols in the government hospitals, where healthcare is significantly cheaper than what obtains in private hospitals. Yet, the fear of having to part with huge sums of money makes most people balk at the idea of going to private hospitals, either
Now, these quacks clearly understand these realities. They know most people would jump at any opportunity to seek healthcare without having to leave their comfort zones and without having to go through gruelling protocols. So, they bring their “services” to your doorstep (home, office, shop, or even gatherings and events).
They entice you with “free medical” checkup
As humans, we have an innate inclination towards getting valuable things at little or no cost. So, these quacks instantly win over people’s hearts by offering them a free medical checkup — or “general body checkup” as they would dumbly say.
Now, after getting a free gift from anyone, it’s only natural to lower your trust guards. You become endeared to the person, and you’re ready to swallow whatever they tell you hook-line-and-sinker — either out of respect for their good heart or out of an innate urge to reciprocate their largesse. With that achieved, they move on to the next steps.
They “run tests” to bamboozle you
The next step is to do a “general body checkup” for you. They may start by checking your blood pressure using a digital BP monitor and running some other quick tests such as blood sugar tests, etc.
In most cases, the next step is to bring out a nonsensical machine called a magnetic quantum resonance analyser (MQRA) or quantum resonance magnetic analyser (QRMA) — mind you, some of them don’t even know the machine goes by this name. So, it’s time for the general body checkup. The rationale behind using this scam of a machine is to gain your trust.
Of course, if a machine connected to your body is telling what’s wrong in different systems of your body, you’re unlikely to doubt it — because it’s a machine! And that’s why the first reply victims of this scam give me when I tell them they’ve been scammed is, “No, they brought a machine and connected it to my body. I saw it with my own eyes, as it was testing through my body.”
So, they connect the machine’s “electrodes” to your body, request your name and other biometric details, and press a few buttons. The machine starts running, blinking some LED lights and beeping some alarms to give the impression of something worth being taken seriously. After a few minutes, your results are ready. Then, the bombshell!
They instil fear in you
Now, one interesting thing about the “checkups” done with the MRQA machine is that it will NEVER certify you perfectly healthy — even if you are! No matter how healthy you are, your results must just show that you’re having some terrifying disease, or an impending one, at best.
So, you’d hear stuff like, “You have prostate disease, moderate liver disease, a little malaria, kidney disease, and too much body fat is blocking your heart” or something similar. Who wouldn’t be shocked at hearing that? It’s like telling you that you’re nothing but a walking corpse whose time would be up at any time soon if action isn’t taken. And since these scary stuff are coming from persons who have tactically earned your trust, you further entrust them with your quest for a solution.
Inevitably, your next question would be something like, “So, what can I do about all these?” or “Can these be cured?” At that point, you’d be offered the solution. Interestingly, they always have drugs for any disease — even one that requires surgery.
They offer to help you
After hearing that your kidneys, brain, liver and/or lungs are badly damaged, anyone would feel uneasy and probably hopeless. And latching on to any promise of hope is done on impulse.
So, after inventing various deadly illnesses for you, they’ll instantly start to offer their own solutions — drugs and supplements that do nothing to those illnesses, even if you truly had them. And these drugs come at cut-throat prices!
Immediately you open up to the idea of getting help from them, they instantly list out the illnesses, the “medication” for each, and the cost of each of the so-called medications. The humongous total bills shock most people to the marrow. But then, they don’t want to die of kidney disease, brain disease, or “moderate typhoid”.
They milk you dry
With your guards lowered and the fear of terrible diseases already instilled in you, getting you to pay money to save your life becomes very easy. So, even if you’d have to take a loan to buy the ridiculous drugs and supplements offered by these scammers, you won’t hesitate to do just that.
Worse, the scammers would tactically milk you dry by compelling you to buy large quantities of each of their so-called drugs. The least you’d be offered is a one-month supply of each. If you’re gullible enough, you’d be deceived into buying up to 3-months supply. Of course, they’d tell you stuffs like, “It will take up to 3 to 6 months for your body to be totally healed of these diseases. So, it’s better you buy quantities enough to last you for at least 3 months.”
By telling you that you’d have to use their drugs over a couple of months, they are able to either rip you off of a huge lump sum or place you on a “monthly subscription plan”. Either would poke large holes in your pocket.
They fool you to clean their tracks
After robbing you of as much money as possible, these scammers leave you with a warning that you must not take any conventional drugs or injections while using their nonsensical drugs, as they could prevent the drugs you bought from them from working effectively. This is nothing but another lie-to-scare tactic.
Of course, when you hear such warning, you heed it because you don’t want mess up the drugs you just bought with your hard-earned money. But the truth is, they only indirectly told you not to go to the hospital or seek treatment from medical experts who would most likely tell you the truth about their scam!
By also keeping you in the dark with this threat, they would be able to continue selling you their rubbish until you are eventually emancipated.
In my next post(s), I’d shed more light on how these scammers started out and how they evolved over time. I’d also give more details of the useless machine called a QRMA. And I’d round it up with nuggets that would help you bust their scams.
Abass Adeola Toriola writes from Abeokuta, Nigeria.
