After a gruelling evening of work in late August, a Nigerian driver for the ride-share app Bolt in Lagos decided to accept one last journey and then head home for the night. That’s when he was scammed.
Rosco* accepted a ride from a person with a South African number who wanted to be picked up near the University of Lagos. Ten minutes after he arrived at the location, the customer was still nowhere to be seen. Over the next 40 minutes, Rosco received 16 more fake requests, all from South African phone numbers, which kept him from making any more money that night.
“These people were holding me ransom,” Rosco told openDemocracy last week.
