When Celebrities Become Tools To Defraud Nigerians

In December 2019, a ‘new phone’, Zzapo mobile, debuted in Nigeria amid huge fanfare. There was a launch where former BBNaija housemate, Jackie, appeared as a brand ambassador.

The phone’s original price was N105,00, but the company, Zzapo Ltd, said it was selling at a promo price of N7,999 for a week. After that, others would be able to buy at N45,000. The only catch was that payment within the promotion period would be considered pre-orders, and the phones would be delivered after 21 days.

One Rakesh Upadhyay, described as the managing director, said the company decided to make the affordable phone after it conducted a survey in Africa and saw a huge demand for good phones.

He said:

“Zzapo phone is the first mobile in the world to have a 720-degree camera that can pick a 360-degree vertical and horizontal panoramic high definition image at the same time.

“Zzapomobile comes in two variants 4 GB ram with 64 GB internal memory and the second one with 6 GB Ram and 128 GB internal memory.”

The company claimed to have its head office in London and a production plant in China.

Within a few days after the launch, it was published here, here, here,and a lot of other news sites in Nigeria. The reports explained the process of getting not only the phone but other accessories like chargers and headphones sold for as low as N1,000. These reportsprovided information about how to order on the website or the physical office in Ikeja.

“Despite all the newspaper reports, I would still not have paid for the phone,” Segun Aminu told Neusroom. “I was only convinced after Broda Shaggi posted it on his Instagram page. That was when I ordered one online.”

Zzapo never delivered the phone at the expiration of the 21 days. But Segun was one of the lucky ones. The payment platform that processed the order, Paystack, returned the money to those who made payments online. Others who went to Zzapo’s office to make payment were not so lucky. Maryam Ugochukwu said she went to ZZapo ‘office’ in Ikeja to make payment.

“I knew the offer was too good to be true. I asked myself: “how can an android phone worth more than N100 000 be sold for less than N10,000? Then I saw the event was published in newspapers, and Jackie was their brand ambassador. If it was not true, there would be no way she would be associated with it. Also, She is a sort of tech enthusiast, so she must have checked the phone and the company before associating with it.

“Just to be sure that I was dealing with a real company, I decided to go to their Ikeja office instead of making payment online. There, I met a lot of people who were also there to buy the phone. We were all directed to Access Bank and provided with an account number that we paid into. I paid for a phone and an earpiece. Someone I met at the bank was a young businessman from Enugu who came all the way to Lagos to buy 50 pieces of the phone and other accessories.

“We waited for 21 days, but the phones were not delivered. When I went to their office in Ikeja again, it was under lock and key. The security man there told us that it had not been open for a while and that many people who paid money to preorder the phone like me have been coming around.”

Taiwo Odutayo told Neusroom that he went to the office too to make the purchase in Ikeja where he bought a mobile phone and an earphone totalling N9,000.

“I have kept the receipt since 2019 hoping that one day I will get my phone or my money back. It is painful because I used my last card (money) to pay for them.

Samson Adranijo told Neusroom that he borrowed some money from a friend to buy the phones with the intention of selling them later.

“In a sane country, I should have been able to sue Broda Shaggi because he was the one that helped them advertise the product which made it go viral. He told us in a video that the phone was good. Many people bought the phone because of him and I am one of them. I did not expect him to allow his name to be used to dupe Nigerians.

“I paid for 20 phones hoping to wait till the following month when the price was expected to N108,000 before I would start selling mine. It took me a while to recover from it.

The comedian, Broda Shaggi, following backlash from people who had fallen victim to the supposed scam issued a statement apologising and promising to investigate it. Nothing came out of it.

Zzapo later released a statement apologising for the delay in delivering the phone to its customers. It blamed the delay on the process of receiving payment for pre orders but promised to fix the problem within a short period. After that, its website went down and its different social media pages became inactive.