ALERT! The Big Brother Naija and Patricia Scam

Operating from Lagos, Nigeria, with a mission to welcome Africa into the digital age with its technology, innovation and payment solutions, Patricia describes itself ‘as a technology driven alternative payments platform where merchants and consumers can transact with new digital currencies such as bitcoin, gift cards and perfect money.’.

Founded in 2017, the company has grown to have over 150 employees in its payroll with major offices in several continents

After the first time as a sponsor in 2020, the founder of Patricia speaking in an interview said when the company sponsored the show at first; there was a huge growth in the user signup in the company. It was a risk they took but it paid off.


In an interview the CEO of Patricia, Fejiro Hanu said after the Ad ran on Big Brother Naija 2020, there was a huge impact on their user base. The company saw 13,000 sign ups in 12 hours after the first ads aired on the popular reality tv show.

Fejiro Hanu said the growth was huge and thus the company has to return to upgrade its category in the show.

Other Big Brother Naija Sponsor
Patricia is not the only sponsor of the Big Brother Naija Program 2021. Financial technology company Abeg Technologies is also a sponsor of the popular reality TV show

The SCAM!

Many users of Patricia app have complained of how they have lost their funds on the app, but yet Big Brother Naija season 6 organisers ignored these alarm and still allow Patricia to be the main sponsor for the 2021 edition.

This hereby bring the transparency of the show to question.

The app has a low rating of 2.5 stars on Google play store, with most users giving just 1 star rating. I bet they would have given 0 star if allowed.

Another user on Nigeria largest online forum, Nairaland also narrated his experience.

Please do not transact any business with Patrica it is a scam site.

They are about crashing, my money is currently stocked, i can’t cash it out, they delibrately issue customers update password update so as to confuse customers into blocking their accounts.

They are currently accepting deposit but not cash out, naira wallet cannot be changed to Bitcoin.


In all these their customer phone number has been switched off, they don’t respond to their email, no live chat, they are on social media updating for new victims while delibrately avoiding every means to ask them question on social media

As if that’s not enough, another user on Naijaloaded also narrated how they stole and used the amazon gift card

This is a serious Scam Alert!!!
A Nigerian who goes by the name Paul Udochukwu shares his horrible experience transacting with Patricia

Read along 👇

My personal encounter with Patricia.
Having heard some of my favorite social media comedians advertise them on their comedy skit, I had them on my list of possible legit but the on-going Big Brother Naija reality show cemented my trust in them.

And that was how I signed up on their platform. I downloaded their app from the play store and provided the necessary details required.

Fast-ward to Saturday 22nd August 2020. I fell prey to one of the most goofily orchestrated scams of modern-day online business transacting.

My happenstance.

I transacted on the Patricia app platform to redeem a $100 Amazon gift card. I sent them a copy of the card and its receipt by 5:08am that Saturday morning.





I chose the cash receipt option. After getting notification of a successful transaction, (which I felt was the prove that the whole process of transacting was over).

I went on to my transaction history to monitor the progress of the transaction. It displayed PENDING as the transaction status, within a short time span it changed to PROCESSING and finally it read DECLINED.



I subsequently got an email which read;



I was calm and unsuspecting at initial because I felt it was quite early in the morning and again I assumed they transacted only on weekdays

I made some inquiries later during the day and was assured they transacted on Saturdays too.



Once more I tried again, this time choosing the E-code (no receipt) option around 12:04pm that same Saturday, only to be notified ASAP via my transaction status which read DECLINED.

I was subsequently notified via email.



I was agitated at this point. Furious and mad at what I just witnessed.

And this was how I started digging to expose the dubious and pernicious Patricia platform.

The Reviews on Google Play Store Are Horrible
Firstly, I went to Google play store to examine people’s reviews, only to find cases similar to mine. And this gave me the conviction that this was not an error but a deliberate act.

After all my discoveries, I asked myself two striking questions.

👉 Why would a self-acclaimed credible platform like Patricia allow customers to send in sensitive details like scratched gift cards for processing when they have no side-by buyer ( or what the chose to present as “we do not have an active trade for this card at the moment”).

👉 Why did it take 21 minutes to process the card at my first trial (from 5:08 – 5:29am) and 15 minutes to process the card on second trial (from 12:04 – 12:19)… My guess is you guys were taking your time redeeming my gift card for yourselves..

Conclusion
Please and please, to be fore-warned is to be fore-armed, I strictly advise anyone wanting to do gift card transactions to avoid using the Patricia platform.

Yes, some have successfully transacted on this platform but that doesn’t take away the fact that they deliberately scam unsuspecting individuals.

Forget their quite presentable adverts and whoever they use as brand ambassador, I fell for it and got scammed. Be wise.

From all these Edujandon.com has come to the conclusion that Patricia is a scam and you should stay away from them.

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