There is a reason why people should stand up for what's right and it's not very hard to see that some people are out to cheat, display aggressive dominance and take advantage of other people.
Exploitation is a real-life issue that's messing things up for so many people and it's sad to see that so many people who are intelligent, physically strong or those with access to what may be considered privileged information use that to exploit people, deceive them and take advantage of such people.
Some say that you can't get away with exploitation. They say that those who go on to exploit will surely come face to face with Karma.
Erm... Nah! They can get away with it!
People shit on others, deceive others and exploit others. Trust me, they won't stop and they will always get away with doing that until the people they target start to object, wise up or even learn to fight back. So, we all have a role to play. It's our moral obligation to fight back and make sure that people won't get away with any attempt they make to cheat, deceive or exploit us.
Do you know that we also must step up and stand up for others when we see that they are getting exploited?
This, for sure, is a tightrope to walk and I know this because I've been in situations where people are getting exploited because they are weak or because they are less informed or less intelligent than they should be in that particular circumstance. It's tough to turn a blind eye to that especially when someone is about to get scammed of his/her hard-earned money.
This reminds me of an incident I experienced after the COVID-19 lockdown. At that point in the economy of several countries of the world, there was a huge financial mess and it affected several businesses, households and individuals. People were aggressively looking for money-making opportunities and businesses were impatiently looking for where to get loans to rebuild their businesses.
As you would expect, Banks were not very interested in giving out loans. Folks started to explore informal loan offers from anyone who gave them away. A lot of Money lending businesses kicked off at that point and I can't say a lot about the genuity of those money lenders running the business. However, one faithful Saturday, my Neighbour came to knock on my door and seek some financial advice.
She has her business which is on the verge of collapse because of lack of funds and she got a loan offer from a lending organization. The offer was juicy. They were ready to give her a loan without asking her for a lot of documents whatsoever. All she needed was to sign an IOU (I Owe You) document provided by the money lending organization. She knew I was a Banker at that time so, she presented the document for me to help her review the offer.
I checked and it turned out that the terms and conditions that were sneaked into the ending part of the 5-paged lending document were too deceitful. I believe the lenders knew that people are not usually in the habit of reading terms & conditions before signing a deal. If the lady had taken the loan from them, the interest rate and additional hidden charges would have crushed her business to the lowest point.
I highlighted all the hidden T&C for her and allowed her to do with the information whatever she wanted. I obviously could have followed it up beyond that, but when it comes to Finances, there is a limit to how far you can go when standing up for others. Even someone that's about to get scammed has a role to play so he/she wouldn't be an easy target for scammers.
I'm not surprised though. The lady confronted the lending organization when they came to finalize the business. She pointed out that hidden T&C and they got pissed and left her alone. She was so happy about the role I played in saving her from being exploited. Also, I was happy she got to pull the trigger by cancelling the deal.
Good riddance, right?
Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop Or Comma.
Thumbnail Image is taken from Unsplash