The #Land”shege” Chronicle of Ndifreke COO, Sytemap who lost over N18m in a Land Scam in Port Harcourt.
This 36-year-old Tech Entrepreneur lost over N18m of his hard-earned money to a dubious land seller and was stranded, left with nothing.
In today’s chronicles, we explore the how, when, where and what happened to him and what he has to say to you today.
1. How did you first learn about this land opportunity (met with the developer or seller? Kindly share the details about this engagement.
Response: I wanted to move some of my money into an investment, so I chose real estate. After several discussions, I met the direct seller of the land I was interested in. We had a discussion and I did my due diligence and made payment for the land.
2. Oh! What steps did you take to make the purchase – who did you interact with, what documents were involved?
Response: Like I said, after I spoke with the owner (supposed) of the land, I engaged a lawyer to conduct some due diligence for me, this took another number of weeks and when he finally gave the go-ahead, I got the survey plan from the seller, went ahead to do my survey and then made payment for the land.
3. And when did you first realize that you had been scammed? Were there any specific moments or things that seemed wrong or suspicious to you?
Response: Hmmm, everything checked out during the purchase process and I was certain I had made the right purchase until 1 year later when I wanted to put a fence over the land, I was approached by another man who introduced himself as the owner of the land that I had purchased. After much consultation, we found out the supposed seller knew of the rightful owner of the land and went behind to wrongly sell the land to me. This was like a nightwear moment for me because within a twinkle of an eye, everything, every story had changed. We went back and forth for several months, and I was wasting more resources trying to get back the land I had paid for. I even involved the Police authorities, but their response didn’t give me much succour or a clear solution to my problem. However, I was able to recover some money after so much tussle with the seller.
4. Can you share in detail what financial losses you incurred as a result of this?
Response: I had lost more than $18000 (over N18m) which was the money I paid for the land and several other hundreds and hundreds of thousands pursuing the matter to get back my money.
5. Have you been able to recover some of your money?
Response: After going back and forth, I could only recover a small part of the money.
6. What steps did you take in order to recover these funds?
Response: I took several steps. At first, I involved the police (CID), involved my lawyer and also lodged the case in court..
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7. What’s one thing you think you should have done better if you were to buy land or property again?
Response: I would have taken my time to ask questions and employ the use of platforms like Sytemap, which is helping land buyers purchase safe and scam-free lands by already conducting thorough verifications of lands on their platforms for buyers.
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