By Seleoe Nonyane
An unknown young man is being hunted down by the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS) after a number of night clubs reported him for allegedly scamming a couple of night clubs in Maseru during the festive season.
The young man pictured above is alleged to have scammed some of the night clubs in the country on December 31 2022 after he had made some bookings and provided the clubs with a false proof of payment.
Narrating the story, the manager for Cuban Linx Phoka Lithebe told this publication that the club received a proof of payment from the suspect after he had called and made a table booking.
“The suspect called the night club and booked a table before hand and then later provided us with a proof of payment which we did not suspect at the time that it could be fake.
“It was later on when he was long gone that we realized that we will not be getting our money as we were informed that the proof of payment provided was fake.
“It was not even difficult to spot that it was a fake because, we immediately realized it right after the busy nights after settling down,” Lithebe said.
He said had it not been for the busy festive they would have seen it immediately after it was send to them therefore, blames the festive fatigue as they were working tirelessly for nights and days without proper rest. So, the scammer took advantage of the busy days and nights
He also said they do not usually use this form of payment so that could also be the reason why they did not think of any wrong doing at the time.
He said the night club has not fully recovered from this and they would like for him to be apprehended so that he pays the amount he owes to the club.
For its side, the Club 266 manager Mamo Mophethe belived the club was also scmmed by the same suspect whereby it incurred a loss of M12 000 to the scammer.
She said that she received a call from another club owner enquiring if they have had a booking from a certain group of young people and what kind of payment they used to pay for their entertainment and beverages.
She said that it was only after the call was made that they became suspicious and then asked if her team whether the money had reflected on the account or not, and only to be told that it had not reflected yet.
She said the club even took a step further to ensure if the money had not really reflected by calling the bank to enquire why it had not reflected on the club’s account. It was at that moment that they realized that they have also fallen prey to the scammer.
“This definitely took me by surprise because we had not anticipated that something of this manner would take place reason being that we do not usually have clients who use that sort of payment method.
“However, we have learned from it and now we have to be vigilant when dealing with such payments such as verifying with the bank beforehand.
“This is because I cannot say that we will never allow this form of payment as a club but we will have to do a thorough check before accepting it,” she said.
She said that the club has since reported this incident to the police and she has heard that one of the suspects have been apprehended although she cannot confirm whether it is true or untrue.
Talking to theReporter, the public relations officer for LMPS Senior Superintendent Mpiti Mopeli said that he is yet to make confirm if the police had received such a report.
