It's Better To Be A Failed Scammer

I am sure you have all imagined yourselves living the lives of those scammers you see online flashing their lifestyles like the OnlyFans girls on X flash their boobs at the comment sections of literally any posts. Well, I am no different. One thing that I can confirm with certainty is that you've never imagined the life of a failed scammer. Let's start with what a failed scammer is. To do so, let me just use my own example because I am one.
So, I used to know a few guys who were living on the same floor of my apartment as myself. I am usually a reserved person so I didn't talk to them as much other than the usual heys and what not. One thing was clear about that bunch though; they were eating life with a big spoon, a spade even. They are the ones who birthed my relentless fascination with scammers and eventually scamming itself. They were literally living my dream life and I just stood there, like a wimp. Tables turn though, don't they?
My table turned one day while I was at the rooftop of that apartment. It was the coolest spot you can ever think; for smokers at least. Life had been doing its thing to me as usual, so I was on my second pack of cigarettes, just chilling. A drunk girl came and sat a few meters from where I sat and she had that wandering eye; looking at nothing and everything at the same time. She looked like those girls who come with their friends to a club and then after a few shots, they become hammered and then they start wandering off, getting all friendly with Tom, Dick and Harry. They always look so inviting and they are usually a fast lay but before you take her home, her friends will descend upon you like you are some kind of rapist. So, with my immense experience, I knew that I had no business being friendly with that hot mess. It turns out that she was not of the same resolve like myself.
"Hey handsome. I like your face. You are sad." She said, with a coarseness in her voice, probably from making too much noise while drunk. I ignored her, but she stood up, pulled down her leather mini skirt and made her way to my side of the rooftop. I lit another cigarette and continued minding my own business, but inside, the eyes at the back of my head were marveling at the beauty of that young thing.
"Hey, can I get one?" She tapped my shoulders, which I just have to mention that they are quite broad. Girls love that, right? I turned to face her, and my heart skipped a beat, to borrow from that cliché. Up close, this girl was a goddess, her beauty was up there with Hellen of Troy and those beauties you see on TikTok but know that you can never have.
I just gave her a cigarette, and my lighter and turned again.
She talked and talked, most of which were nonsense, but it's not her fault. I am sure that all those guys in her DMs don't slide there for her intellectual gifts. For me, I have to fall for your brain first before I can lust for your body, but this girl was different. We finished my pack of cigarettes but I am always a man with a plan so I told her to wait for me there while I rush downstairs to pick another pack from my house. She refused and insisted that she wanted us to go together. At the time, she wasn't that drunk so keep that judgy feminism out of your head.
We head down, she couldn't walk well due to the soft slippery tiles so she removed her stilettos (I honestly don't know if they are called that) and helter-skelter we did all the way to my apartment. I didn't want to ask her who she was with because in my experience it never really ends well. At the apartment, she was moving around my house, which was practically empty, but she seemed to love it. I was not at my best financially, as you must have already figured.
"Wow! I love your house. It gives me Tommy vibes." She said excitedly. Who the hell was Tommy? I later figured out that she was talking about Tommy, a badass character from a TV show called Power, and yeah, my house looked exactly like that, apart from the robustness and the pool table.
I had a painting of Tommy Shelby smoking cigarettes, that was cool at the time, don't ask me why. Within three minutes she was already at the other end of the room, where I used to let my imaginations run wild. She read through a few poems and her expressions made me feel like some form of Da Vinci or Picasso.
"Here are our cigarettes. Do we go back to the rooftop?" I said, knowing that she didn't want to go. But sometimes it is better to make them feel like they are in control; those X gurus don't teach you that, do they?
"You have a balcony, why don't we just smoke there?" She said heading to my fridge, which practically had nothing apart from the leftovers from last night which were to be my supper. One thing I never lacked though, was a bottle of liquor or two; and that is what we needed at that time.
I am already off-topic but you have to bear with me. The way I made that girl obsessed with me is one of my best pieces of art till date so calm your horses. We did our thing, and later on, around twelve midnight, someone knocked at my door, and I woke up to drink a glass of water to at least drive off just an inch of my hangover; put on my linen pants and then headed for the door.
I saw a guy and a very pretty woman knocking at my door. Well, this is strange. I saw that the door was not locked. Even stranger.
"Hey Idris, I forgot something in your apartment and we actually want to leave. Can I come in to get it?" Said the woman. Whoah! Hold up, this was the girl from earlier. I had forgotten about that. No wonder she was so pretty, I never see two pretty women at my door on the same day.
I just let her in, and the dude she was with entered too.
"Ooh, Jay, this is Idris. The guy I told you about." She said looking at the dude.
"Oh, the guy with the poems? Great work, man." The dude said, with a coldness in his face. I didn't even want the details but I thought maybe the girl took some of my poems with her. Who cares? It's not like I was making any money from them.
The girl asked me if I wanted to join her friends and herself as they were to hit a few clubs. I outrightly refused of course. I might have been poor but I was not an idiot. She kept insisting, and I was still pretty drunk and you know bad decisions follow.
They had those cars that I could only download their photos to use as a wallpaper for my old laptop that made the sound of a V6 engine when I was using it. They were about eight; five of them were these top-tier women with TikTok bodies. The fifth one was the girl from earlier. The guys were pretty chill, and it turned out that the OG of the bunch was actually the one who shared the floor with me.
So we hit the clubs, they understood that I was a brokie so bills were none of my concern. To my utter luck, I am a pretty fun guy when I am drunk, and soon all the girls and the three guys were listening to stories. I am pretty good at making impressions of people and I have a sharp wit so my sense of humor is intact, and it turned out that some of them were not as dumb as the others. We had fun, and in the morning I checked my M-Pesa account balance and noticed that my elder brother had blessed it with a few cents so I took a matatu and I disappeared.
Just to show you that I was a pretty fun guy, the girl came to my house a few times from then and we started something of a little romance. I am a romantic at heart, I mean I have to be, if I am to write poems that romantic people can gift to their lovers. We went on these cheap dates and the girl seemed to love it. The other guys and their guys kept inviting us to hang out with them but my insecurities couldn't allow me to be fed by another man, but I eventually gave in once in a while.
Sooner rather than later, it had become a habit. I was partying everyday of the week without as much as a care in the world that time was speeding on my face. I loved it because of the validation I was getting from these guys, and my writing was improving. They took my girlfriend and I to the exotic places and that expanded my imagination, so my writing had improved so much.
One time, they asked me if I could receive some funds for them then keep a percentage, which I gladly agreed. I mean, these guys were practically my friends. It was long money, and so the percentage was surprisingly long. It was the kind of money that I had never owned before so it was pretty good. This kept happening time after time and my bank was getting fatter. It is true when Denzel Washington said, "You hang at the barbershop long enough, sooner or later you are gonna get a haircut," and sure enough, I got my haircut when the OG of the group started inviting me to his house for some financial advice. He taught me how they made their money, which was pretty much scamming, but they also had other legit ways of making money online, most of which I was oblivious about. My intermediate grasp of the English language and others like French and Spanish made me a valuable asset for their scamming 'syndicate' as I like to call it.
I don't have to tell you that my life had changed from zero to double figures real quick, and there were signs of course. For instance, that empty apartment was transformed into a 'Tommy' apartment now that at the time I had watched Power so I had both the knowhow and the resources to make it happen. I was finally living a life worth living, but it wasn't enough. I wanted more, of course I did; I am an ambitious man.
Maya, which was the name of that pretty thing I was telling you about, moved into my apartment, and she was my muse. since almost all my poems were based on her. Of course, I was a big man then so I had other lovers lined up, and Maya knew about them, but you don't find a gem like me everywhere on the streets. Grandiosity. That is where it started.
There were moments when there was no cash coming in, and during those times, we had to resort to the coffers, and when the coffers were empty, we had to think, and fast. So, we resorted to scamming people we knew, and boy, was the list long. We were the high rollers of the city, so of course our options were wide; but we soon exhausted those options.
Maya told me to focus on my writing since many publishers were seemingly interested in my work and most had offers, only that their offers couldn't even pay for my dinner, leave alone for the two of us. I was writing only for fun; to 'suppress my demons' as I used to tell my partners in crime.
I was out of touch with my brothers and sisters since I had found new ones. If it wasn't about money, then I didn't want it. I was in a marathon between my new found greed and the inevitable poverty that was seemingly faster than my greed. When it rains, then it pours, and when it pours, then everyone without a roof over their head is washed away. That was me. The OG was eventually gunned down because he had scammed some Saudi bastards, and then a few others disappeared. Maya, the ever street smart girlfriend of mine took me to her sister's place, where we stayed for more than four months as we waited for things to cool down. I spent that time to write deeply and to analyze my behavior, and of course, I had to do it dead broke.
The irony was that it started and ended with Maya, the most beautiful I had ever seen. I was just lucky that she didn't desert me towards the end because it would have killed me.
Once it was all over we made our way to my rural home. I had nothing under my name there, and my father had nothing under his either, but at least I had his name, and there were others with his name too; so I retraced my steps and traced my brothers. Before we left Maya's sister's place, I wrote in my journal,
"Crime pays, handsomely in fact. It is just that all that reward and pay does not diminish the criminal's underlying problems: his laziness and his greed; which are what led him to the life of crime in the first place, and are the same things that will lead his life to an abrupt end.
RIP OG."
Now, I am one of the luckiest. The only thing better than a rich scammer is a failed scammer, because that way, he can retrace his steps, and catapult himself to the right path once again.
Also, I hope when you fail as a scammer, you will emerge on the other side with a damsel or two by your side, and curse all the chaos that you left behind so that you can live a life of honor and bliss.
Cheers.