How a Syndicate Defrauds People of Money on Facebook in the Guise of Selling Ponmo to them

(Disclaimer: Further investigations into this matter has revealed that Pastor Confidence face is being used by a syndicate to defraud people. Pastor Confidence is not connected to this fraud)

Sarah Alli is a young Nigerian woman. She is newly married to her husband who is a teacher. Mrs. Alli is still in school and to support her husband’s meager salary, she decides to go into business. While looking out for what to do, she discovered that ponmo business was lucrative and decided to search online (Facebook) for dealers. She saw dried ponmo business page and contacted the number for enquires. In the cause of her investigation, she noticed Confidence Ikegwuoha was the one who tagged the post on the Facebook page and assumed he was the owner of the page. (Although she later found out that he also bears the name Isaac Nwaizugbu on some of his other Facebook accounts and TBoy son on another, based on similarities in the posts shared and the profile pictures in some cases).

• 

• 

The title “Pastor” is conspicuously tagged to his name on most of his pages. Mrs. Alli began to discuss with Pastor Confidence about buying some packs of ponmo for retail purposes. A deal was reached and she paid the sum of N12,000 into a Union Bank account bearing the name Tangban Pearl Assemeghai. When she found out that the business transaction was false, she tried to report to WhatsApp. She lost all her chats with this man, including the account number. She had made the payment on the 2nd of May, 2020. Mrs. Alli had actually requested only a third of the pack that this so called Pastor usually sold to other people because that amount was all she could spare at the time.

A few days later Pastor Confidence got back to her and said that the dispatchers were not coming to her side of the country anymore. He offered her the option of either increasing her purchase or getting a refund or waiting for some other customers to order goods in her locality so that there will be a large enough consignment to be transported to all of them. At this point Mrs. Alli, sensing something was wrong, requested for a refund of her money. The refund option is something that Pastor Confidence continually bares at his customers. Pastor Confidence then said he would do the needful. Unfortunately up till the time of this publication, he had not returned Mrs. Alli’s money to her. After waiting and not hearing anything from Pastor Confidence, Alli reported the matter to Union Bank and the officials told her to complain to her own bank. Unfortunately Alli’s bank is no longer responding to emails. Right now she has proceeded to report the matter to the police.

Mrs. Alli got in touch with Text and Publishing and made her complaints known to us. In the guise of buying dried ponmo for retail purposes, Text and Publishing contacted Pastor Confidence. He requested to know where we were based and we told him “Gbagada, Lagos”. He was confident he could get supplies to Lagos in no time. But before we began discussing payment options, Text and Publishing asked why Pastor Confidence had not supplied Mrs. Sarah Alli’s consignment. He replied by saying that he was already working on refunding her money. A few days later when we contacted him to ask whether he had refunded the money as promised, he said “I would do the needful”. By the next time we tried reaching him to find out why he had not kept his promise, Pastor Confidence had blocked us both on phone and WhatsApp.

Text and Publishing got in touch with another lady who gets her supply of dry ponmo from Kano and Ilorin. This lady said that she receives her consignment at most in two days but that in recent times, due to the blockades around state borders because of the Coronavirus pandemic, consignments take up to a week to be delivered. It is worth noting here that Mrs. Alli paid Pastor Confidence since the 2nd of May.

• 

• 

Upon further investigations, it was discovered that Pastor Confidence Ikegwuoha has actually defrauded many other women of their hard earned resources. In fact it is believed that the pictures and names he uses on his social media handles are fictitious. It is very likely we are dealing with a syndicate here and not just one person.

Favor Jude paid Pastor Confidence the sum of N12,000 on the 8th of March, 2020, more than two months ago, and she is yet to receive her goods. Adepega Collins paid this same man the sum of N10,000 on the 2nd of March, 2020 and is yet to receive her goods as well. Pauline Ways paid N52,000 on the 12th of May, still nothing. One Azeezah Umar also paid N12,000 to this man on the 6th of May and has not received anything from him. Ojeleye Simi sent N28,000 on the 5th of April and is yet to also receive her good. And many others like that.

The account numbers that these women have been paying into are Fidelity Bank 6323250826 with account name Orieji Kalu; FCMB 6631161012 with account name Tangban Pearl Assemeghai; Sterling Bank 0076938284 with account name Ukaegbu Chinagorom E.; and Union Bank 200**389 with account name Tangban Pearl Assemeghai. Of all the four accounts, only two bear the same name. These are the phone numbers that Pastor Confidence can be reached at:

07059112785
09029995374
08057256077

And some of his new pages are carrying new numbers.

The pages this man (or syndicate) operates include:

Dried ponmo Nigeria
Dried ponmo store
Dried ponmo business
Dried edible ponmo dealer
Dried edible ponmo business
among others.

He is seen in some groups also advertising this business. These include:

Spangler market and vent sq
Bitcoin and crypto as TBoy son
Nigerian online shopping mall
Prayer rain
BlessRoss market and vent
Prayer rain etc

Text and Publishing chose to publish this story so as to help dissuade other Nigerians from being duped by this man or syndicate. It is also a call on the Nigerian law enforcements who have received reports on this case, to expedite action at nabbing these criminals. We trust that the banks involved will cooperate with law enforcement agents, flag these accounts, identify the owners in person, and then report them to the police.

In this time of the Coronavirus pandemic where there is scarcity of money and people are trying to survive on the little they have, the last thing that should be happening is for poor innocent women to be defrauded of their hard earned resources. We hope that members of the public will beware of this syndicate. Clearly there are legitimate ponmo businesses in Nigeria. But, like it is in every venture, there are frauds masquerading as angels of light to steal from unsuspecting members of the public.