A young lady in her late 20s has been left in despair and counting her losses after a man who became her acquaintance through a misplaced phone call lured her to Navrongo and bolted with her possessions.
The young lady (name withheld) was visiting Sheaga in the Talensi District from Kumasi where she resides, when her supposed acquaintance called Zamani, who she has been in contact with for over a year invited her to pay him a visit at Navrongo.
Even though the lady had not met Zamani physically aside from the few photos he sent to her via WhatsApp, she decided to take the risk for the love they shared and jumped into a vehicle straight to Navrongo.
Her eyes, however, were opened to the reality when the ‘boyfriend’ she had come all the way for, visited her at a guesthouse and absconded with her smartphone and Mobile Money savings.
Narrating her ordeal at the Fehna Guesthouse where her ‘boyfriend’ dumped her, the distraught lady told GhanaWeb’s Senyalah Castro, that the man invited her to Navrongo so they could get to know themselves better and discuss further their plans to settle down.
She said she never intended to go but the convincing words of the ‘boyfriend’ to get her an apartment in Bolgatanga pushed her to give the relationship a try.
She said when her ‘boyfriend’ arrived at the guesthouse where she lodged, he borrowed her smart phone under the pretext of using it to withdraw money from a Mobile Money vendor and vanished into thin air with it.
She said the ‘boyfriend’ explained to her that he had network challenges with his phone and needed hers to be able to undertake the transaction to settle the bills. She said all her efforts to trace the man were futile.
"When I alighted at the station, the guy said that I should come to the guesthouse. He said I should be there and he will come and pay the bills. When I got to there (guesthouse) the guy came with food. I didn’t even eat the food. Then he said he will use my phone to get some money (make his MoMo withdrawal). So, he collected the phone and left.
"When he left with the phone just in seconds, my heartbeat and I said let me trace this guy and see. So, I just ran out but I couldn’t find the guy so I used one of the receptionists' phone to call my number and it was switched off."
When GhanaWeb visited the guesthouse, she said the man, after running away with the phone went further to withdraw all the savings in her Mobile Money account, leaving her penniless.
Faustina Abulu, the proprietress of the guesthouse, confirmed the incident to GhanaWeb. She said one of her staff reported that a young lady in one of the rooms had been swindled by her boyfriend and was unable to pay her bills.
She said the situation of the young lady was worrying so she admitted her into one of the rooms without charge and also took care of her transportation back to her destination.
The lady advises young ladies to be careful not to be blinded by love to fall into her kind of circumstance. She noted that but for the kindness of Mrs. Abulu, she would have been in total misery.
