When Scam Puts On New Clothes

When Scam Puts On New Clothes

By Bagudu Mohammed

Scam is no longer hiding in dark corners. It has walked out into the light, dressed like innovation, speaking like a content creator, and moving with the same speed as every trending topic on your timeline. The irony is painful. As social media grows, our ability to tell what is real from what is fabricated seems to be shrinking. We scroll, we react, and without thinking we amplify. In doing that, ordinary people become the loudest megaphones for fraud.

What makes this new wave dangerous is how smart it looks. Today’s scammer does not come to you as a criminal. He comes as an entrepreneur, a thinker, a helper who has “inside information.” He feeds on mood, on vibe, on the collective emotion of the moment the way real creators feed on trends. He takes a piece of truth, wraps it in urgency, and sells you a lie that feels reasonable. That is the trick. Half-truth is more powerful than a total lie because your brain already wants to believe it.

The moment a government agency hints that a recruitment portal will open, the fake portals are already live. Before the ink dries on an official statement, fraudsters have cloned the logo, copied the language, and are asking you to “pay a token for processing.” They are not inventing reality. They are hijacking it.

We are seeing it play out presently after the Osun election. The moment results confirmed that Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord party had won, the celebration was real and loud. And right inside that wave of joy, another story slipped in. This one said Adeleke was sharing ₦15,000 cash transfers to mark the victory. Some versions even pulled in his nephew, music star Davido, claiming the money was “powered by Davido.” It was clever. It used two things Nigerians already know to be true: that Adeleke won, and that he is Davido’s uncle. From there, fiction rode on the back of fact.

The post traveled everywhere. WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, even platforms you would expect to be more careful. Some people forwarded it five times in one morning, not out of malice but out of that strange new shamelessness social media has created. Others reposted it ignorantly, convinced that if something is everywhere, it must have some truth in it. That is exactly how misinformation works. Communication scholar Joseph Caplan called this the “illusory truth effect”. The more we see a claim, the more familiar it feels, and the more we judge it to be true, even without evidence.

It is the same psychology that made the recent “MTN 25GB Free Data” hoax spread like wildfire. The message looked perfect. MTN yellow, official tone, a link to click, and the instruction to forward to ten groups. Because data is expensive and people are tired, thousands clicked. Within two days MTN had to come out publicly to say it was fake, that the links were phishing traps designed to harvest numbers and push secret subscriptions. The Nigerian Communications Commission has warned repeatedly that telecom-related fraud now ranks among the top three cybercrime reports in the country. Yet the scam keeps working because it speaks directly to economic pressure.

This is where the problem deepens. When fake news becomes constant, people start to doubt real news. Right now there is an actual CAC announcement about free company registration, and many Nigerians are ignoring it because “it must be another scam.” We have trained ourselves to disbelieve, and fraudsters have trained us. That is what media theorist Neil Postman warned about decades ago: when the information environment is polluted, citizens lose the ability to separate signal from noise, and democracy itself gets tired.

So we have to ask the uncomfortable question. Who has ever shared free money to all Nigerians? When did government or celebrities start sending ₦15,000 to everyone’s account without a process, a portal, or an announcement on national TV? And if you are forwarding that Adeleke-Davido cash gift, have you yourself received it? Charity, as the old saying goes, begins at home. You cannot claim to be helping others access free money you have never seen. To share without verifying is not kindness. It is recruitment. You become an unpaid agent for criminals.

Psychologists call this “altruistic deception.” Fraudsters pretend they are motivated by public good. They say “I’m just sharing so people can benefit.” But research from the University of Cambridge’s Cybercrime Centre shows that most viral scams spread not because people are evil, but because they want to feel useful. The dopamine hit of “thank you for sharing” feels like community service. In reality, you are feeding a machine that thrives on desperation.

We cannot excuse this with economic hardship. Yes, people are patronizing Ponzi schemes and betting sites because times are hard. That is a personal choice. But dragging others into a scam is not. It is exploitation dressed as generosity.

So enough of “Adeleke is sharing money.” Enough of “Davido is giving cash.” Enough of “MTN is dashing 25GB.” Nobody has ever dropped free money into every Nigerian account. What we have instead is a new normal where scam wears the mask of opportunity, and where we, the users, are both the audience and the stage.

Before you hit forward, pause. Check the source. Check the website. Check if it is on the official page. As philosopher Harry Frankfurt reminded us, the biggest danger in our time is not lying, but bullshit: speech made with no regard for truth. Don’t let your timeline become a bullshit factory. The cost is not just data or money. It is trust. And once trust is gone, even real help will look like another scam.

Bagudu Mohammed* is the Founder, Alternative Perspectives.
Web: https://alternativeperspective.onrender.com
Email: bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com | Phone: 0703 494 3575