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There has always been a lot of quotes and proverb that illustrate that, inability to take risks will prevent a person from taking advantage of opportunities but some risks are not worth the price.
I have shared a similar experience earlier some weeks back on a similar topic, one of the greatest risk I ever took has always been maximise profit which doesn't always turn out as expected.
Before I started my Higher national diploma programme, I had this job at Duncan maritime limited, the job pay was ok so I had a lot of leftover funds. my safest way of motoring my savings was making use of piggyvest an online saving platform. which later became an habit of mine and increase my saving attitude. when I realised that I will be undergoing my HND program at moshood abiola Polytechnic which has always been the plan before I started my industrial training.
I embarked on safe locking funds, which is one of the features of piggyvest app that allows you to safe lock some from, in return you get an upfront interest before the due date. I was fine with just the safe locking of funds till one of my colleagues at work popularly known as sir k.
for weeks he kept lecturing be about an investment platform that pays a very High interest. I did not pay attention to him at first because I knew it could be another Ponzi scheme. few weeks later sir k started getting returns from his investment which was very attractive but still I turned deaf ears to the news of the investment.
though he knew about my plan to pursue my HND education, so one day he walked up to me and gave me some advise which centred around taking risk, sir k is very much older than I'm so he usually treat me like I'm am his son. from his advise I decided to start little by investing 20k at first which in the pace of one month came back with returns of 25RIO.
then I got greedy, because I realise I could save up faster by investing more funds forgetting that the business could crash at any moment, though I did a lot of verification before I started investing, I knew of the company Neme, quintessential investment limited, I knew of there physical office at Lekki and the founder Joshua and a lot of other information, but I guess that doesn't guarantee much.
while I was investing I only collected my profit twice, the rest I kept on renewing the investment capital and profit in order to maximise my profit. in the pace of 7months the company started having issues paying his investors, the moment I noticed I quickly requested for a withdraw instantly but it was too late. as that moment I have accumulated about 457k. because I was running both 6month plan and monthly plan.
when I requested for withdrawal, I got just 52k, I was extremely devastated. the owner of the company Joshua Kayode was arrested and charged to court for fraud, then I still had hope maybe he might release the funds but you know Nigeria case are, the case died down and I never heard anything from him till today.
sir k who introduced me to the investment platform lost more than I did, about 2m plus. he never recovered from the loss. at that moment though I still have the funds I have safe lock on my piggyvest app for my HND program but those were meant for after graduation.
the loss had a lot of impact on every area of my life, I was extremely devastated because I had plans I wanted to execute with the money, my HND 1 was rough because I was still recovering from the loss. my parent supported me especially my dad, he just kept on reassuring me that everything will be fine.
I learnt my lessons but the memory of it is still traumatic up to this moment, I guess the proverb that states "all that glitters is not gold" is true after all, if I had the opportunity to make the same choice again I wouldn't because taking risk is part of life but playing safe ain't wrong either
©𝓔𝓶𝓻𝔂𝓼𝓳𝓸𝓫𝓫𝓮𝓻