Roadside conmen posing as mobile phone and SIM card vendors had to run for their dear lives after an angry mob attacked them in Thika early this week.
This was after numerous people complained of losing a lot of money to the fraudsters who have often posed as representatives of leading telco company in the country.
According to Thika Town Today, about 20 'representatives' had strategically lined themselves along Commercial Street near the Thika Telcom Shop to do their business as usual where they lured passersby to a particular vehicle that was parked at the shop.
Upon arriving at the scene, the victims would be convinced that these were genuine company agents who were selling mobile phones and tablets on promotion and would thereafter be entered into a raffle draw where they were to win great prices.
“They tell you that you will not pay anything if you do not win any prize but all these tickets have a prize inscribed inside and therefore no matter what, they will demand money from you in exchange to your prize item,” one woman who claimed to have lost Sh7,000 in exchange for a tablet worth Sh15,000 told Thika Today.
It was at this state of 'booming' business that a group of youth blowing whistles raided the place and flashed the conmen out, the blogger reports.
Angry residents would thereafter find out that the merchandise being sold to the people, none of them had any phone inside and those that had contained faulty phones.
It took the intervention of some traders to let the fraudsters off the hook as the irate mob bayed for their blood while demanding to set ablaze the vehicle that they were using.