Good day nairalaner.

One of the guys that helps me delivery for my e-commerce business recently run away with my money which is sum of 104,000 Naira at first I was trying to arrest him with police but I don't really trust Nigeria police that much because any small bribe them to release m so one of my colleague advice me to charge him to court.

Now this is the first time I'm doing this. I will like to know the cost of hiring a lawyer and other court fee I have to pay and see if it really worth it or I just post his information online as a scammer and fraudster.

Your suggestion is highly welcome. Thanks

I think you can contact any lawyer and get a direct inform about their fees and other expenses from them, then you can make your decision of either continue with it or not.

Some lawyers are scammers.
They take your money , appear in court for sometime then scram.

Others connive with your opponent to prosecute your case , and fall victims deliberately to technicalities that will make you lose your case.

" It's not what you know,
but what you can prove"

However, there is a small percentage that are born lawyers, that is their spiritual calling. I pray you find such, Amin.

Money that you will spend on hiring a lawyer plus fueling his car tank and feeding him will exceed the money the delivery man is owing you by far...

"Meet me in court". Na only big men with big belle for Nigeria dey use that slogan..

You should have arrested the guy from the beginning,at least, police would have handled the case more easily than settling for a lawyer..

Arrest the Idiot first....

Because even if you issue him a court notice, the scammer will runaway again.

Sonnobax15:

Money that you will spend on hiring a lawyer plus fueling his car tank and feeding him will exceed the money the delivery man is owing you by far...

"Meet me in court". Na only big men with big belle for Nigeria dey use that slogan..

You should have arrested the guy from the beginning,at least, police would have handled the case more easily than settling for a lawyer..

I learnt that police will release him if I don't have any direct contact with one of the police. And the case will die down

Go the Anambra way....u will sure get Ur money in full with apologies

Both Police and Lawyer are same but lawyer will take more for you ,Money to file in court ,Biailiff money for service him or his Lawyer and anytime the case is coming up in court you will pay him to come to court so you can give police small money to help you get part of the money from him

Update On this Case:

A little back story on what happened.

As I said in the previous post, I run e-commerce business in Lagos Nigeria but due to the slow delivery and high cost of dispatch rider I result to using self delivery agent which I usually get on Facebook.

So Mayowa is one of the agents that does delivery for me. On the 13th of August Mayowa went out for delivery and never gave me updates. Luckily for me the next day I was able to reach one of his roommates, that is when he told me to steal his phone ( first lie ) and he wanted to retrieve his sim card.

3 days later he retrieved the sim and drops messages on Whatsapp that they wipe the money in his account ( second lie ). So after long back and forth and told him to find a way to pay 73,500 out of the 104k ( that was the total amount he collected from the customers after successful delivery ). So he agreed and promised to pay the money soon but I don't hear anything from him till August ending.

So on September 1st I decided to track his address ( because it is part of what they submit before we onboard any agents ). After taking for a while that day he promised to pay me that week, so I told him that I can't believe his word that he will have to sign an agreement which he agreed to but unfortunately I don't draft it before I went there that day so I told him I will draft the agreement when I got home and forward it to him in PDF format so that he can signed it and send it back to me.

And that was exactly what I did when I got home. At first he said he will not be able to pay off all the money before the end of that week which is on the 7th. so I asked him when will he be able to pay off the money and he said in 3 weeks time so I edited the agreement again and send it back to him but instead of 3 weeks I put 4 weeks giving him additional 1 week.

Naso this guy refused to sign the agreement nor make any payment. I will call him he will not even pick my call, I discuss this with few of my friends they told me to get him arrested plus most of the advice here also suggests the same thing. But the problem is that I don't just trust Nigeria police. But at this point I have no other choice than to arrest him....

So on Wednesday which is the 18th, I and my wife decided to arrest him. My wife went to the police station to report him while I went to his house to confirm his availability. Luckily for us he was at home sleeping so the police were able to arrest him.

When he got to the station and was questioned he said he bought a phone from easy buy that they are the one that removed the money from his account. Obviously police don't buy that because we all know the least easybuy can do is to lock your phone if you default and they will unlock it when you pay.

So after going back and forth and was treating with court and jail he later open up that he used the money to play virtual betting 🤦🤦.

Anyway they asked him to discuss with me on how he will pay off the debt and he promised to pay within 1 month but the police say he should provide a guarantor to help him sign the undertaking and he said the person that was supposed to sign for him will close from work by 8pm.

So we have to leave that day and he was locked up but the police said they can lock him up more than 24hrs or they will take him to court if is not able to pay.

So on Thursday which is on the 19th I was very busy so I asked my wife to go there on my behalf. Because he doesn't have a phone no one has come to check him yet but after sometimes we were able to reach some of his church members.

Now the arrangement was that is going to sign an undertaking to pay the money within a month and he needs a guarantor to help him with that but unfortunately his church member that was sent by the church said he will not be able to do that.

So he called one of his roommates to help him with that but that one said he will be back from work by 8pm, but before that the police lady in charge if the case advise us to charge him to court so we processed some of the paperwork that day and my wife left hoping that if the person comes to help him sign undertaking fine but if he doesn't he will he charge him to court.

But when my wife got home that night we realised we have spent over 30k already both the one we use to settle police and the transportation

So we decided that if they don't deposit at least 50k the next day he will be charged to court even if the person that wanted to sign the agreement for him showed up.

Getting there on [b]Friday which is 20th [/b]my wife meets 3 guys there who are there because of him so she tell the new development that they need to deposit 50k out of the 104k before they can sign the undertaking. After going back and forth and much begging they said everything 3 of them can gather now is 20k so we agreed to take it and let them sign the undertaking. That he will be paying 20k weekly for the next 4 weeks.

So they went to go and meet the DPO and explain to him but the DPO insisted that it is either they pay everything which is 104k or they will charge him to court. So we told the police lady that we don't want to go to court again and that we want to withdraw the case since they are ready to drop 20k and signed undertaking.

So she drafted the undertaking and one of the guys signed it, then they sent the 20k to my wife account. But they said before they can release him we have to go and tell the DPO that we want to drop the case and settle outside police station. Unfortunately the DPO was not around so my wife waited from 2pm to 5pm for the DPO.

But while waiting something happened.

1.) they asked those guys that contribute the money that who will pay for the bail and all of them said they don't have any money with them again and they don't now.

2.) immediately they deposited the 20k, the police lady in charge of the case said my wife must give her 10% of what they pay which is 2k as their own percentage. Mind you they collect 10k the first day we reported the case. So I asked my wife not to give her anything that we will pay that when he fully paid the debt. because if it is not wickedness someone is owning me 104k and was able to pay 20k and you guys still want to collect from that. The money don't even cover the expenses of what we have been spending since this incident happened.

So because of that the police lady tore the undertaking, took the guy back to the cell and called a POS attendant outside the station that my wife should transfer the money to her or she will not allow her to go. I believe the reason why she use POS is because if kasala burst it will not be trackable.

So after the DPO arrived my wife wanted to go and meet him and tell him we are not doing the case again. but the police lady didn't allow her to go in.

She ( the police lady ) went into the DPO office and come and said DPO said they will charge the guy to court on Monday. I asked my wife to tell him that I don't want to do court case again because I don't have any money to spend again.

And my wife left. It was later the other guys who contributed the money called me and started talking that why did my wife not send them back the money since they are not releasing the guy as agreed and why sending the money to the police lady. Me just tell them say make they go police station on Monday to sort it out themselves. Because the stress is too much and na me they spend money na police they collect m so I'm not longer interested in the case.

I have always heard bad things about the Nigeria police but this is the first time I experienced it first hand. All that those people care about is money and nothing else. I decided to share this just in case you have a similar case, police should be your last option or better still leave m for God. Those guys are money sucking vampires

Mayowais419:
Getting there on [b]Friday which is 20th [/b]my wife meets 3 guys there who are there because of him so she tell the new development that they need to deposit 50k out of the 104k before they can sign the undertaking. After going back and forth and much begging they said everything 3 of them can gather now is 20k so we agreed to take it and let them sign the undertaking. That he will be paying 20k weekly for the next 4 weeks.

So they went to go and meet the DPO and explain to him but the DPO insisted that it is either they pay everything which is 104k or they will charge him to court. So we told the police lady that we don't want to go to court again and that we want to withdraw the case since they are ready to drop 20k and signed undertaking.

So she drafted the undertaking and one of the guys signed it, then they sent the 20k to my wife account. But they said before they can release him we have to go and tell the DPO that we want to drop the case and settle outside police station. Unfortunately the DPO was not around so my wife waited from 2pm to 5pm for the DPO.

But while waiting something happened.

1.) they asked those guys that contribute the money that who will pay for the bail and all of them said they don't have any money with them again and they don't now.

2.) immediately they deposited the 20k, the police lady in charge of the case said my wife must give her 10% of what they pay which is 2k as their own percentage. Mind you they collect 10k the first day we reported the case. So I asked my wife not to give her anything that we will pay that when he fully paid the debt. because if it is not wickedness someone is owning me 104k and was able to pay 20k and you guys still want to collect from that. The money don't even cover the expenses of what we have been spending since this incident happened.

So because of that the police lady tore the undertaking, took the guy back to the cell and called a POS attendant outside the station that my wife should transfer the money to her or she will not allow her to go. I believe the reason why she use POS is because if kasala burst it will not be trackable.

So after the DPO arrived my wife wanted to go and meet him and tell him we are not doing the case again. but the police lady didn't allow her to go in.

She ( the police lady ) went into the DPO office and come and said DPO said they will charge the guy to court on Monday. I asked my wife to tell him that I don't want to do court case again because I don't have any money to spend again.

And my wife left. It was later the other guys who contributed the money called me and started talking that why did my wife not send them back the money since they are not releasing the guy as agreed and why sending the money to the police lady. Me just tell them say make they go police station on Monday to sort it out themselves. Because the stress is too much and na me they spend money na police they collect m so I'm not longer interested in the case.

I have always heard bad things about the Nigeria police but this is the first time I experienced it first hand. All that those people care about is money and nothing else. I decided to share this just in case you have a similar case, police should be your last option or better still leave m for God. Those guys are money sucking vampires

use civil defence police are thieves

You want to hire a lawyer ontop 100k?
Ok. It will cost you 50k for consultancy and 300k to hire the lawyer.

Mayowais419:
Getting there on [b]Friday which is 20th [/b]my wife meets 3 guys there who are there because of him so she tell the new development that they need to deposit 50k out of the 104k before they can sign the undertaking. After going back and forth and much begging they said everything 3 of them can gather now is 20k so we agreed to take it and let them sign the undertaking. That he will be paying 20k weekly for the next 4 weeks.

So they went to go and meet the DPO and explain to him but the DPO insisted that it is either they pay everything which is 104k or they will charge him to court. So we told the police lady that we don't want to go to court again and that we want to withdraw the case since they are ready to drop 20k and signed undertaking.

So she drafted the undertaking and one of the guys signed it, then they sent the 20k to my wife account. But they said before they can release him we have to go and tell the DPO that we want to drop the case and settle outside police station. Unfortunately the DPO was not around so my wife waited from 2pm to 5pm for the DPO.

But while waiting something happened.

1.) they asked those guys that contribute the money that who will pay for the bail and all of them said they don't have any money with them again and they don't now.

2.) immediately they deposited the 20k, the police lady in charge of the case said my wife must give her 10% of what they pay which is 2k as their own percentage. Mind you they collect 10k the first day we reported the case. So I asked my wife not to give her anything that we will pay that when he fully paid the debt. because if it is not wickedness someone is owning me 104k and was able to pay 20k and you guys still want to collect from that. The money don't even cover the expenses of what we have been spending since this incident happened.

So because of that the police lady tore the undertaking, took the guy back to the cell and called a POS attendant outside the station that my wife should transfer the money to her or she will not allow her to go. I believe the reason why she use POS is because if kasala burst it will not be trackable.

So after the DPO arrived my wife wanted to go and meet him and tell him we are not doing the case again. but the police lady didn't allow her to go in.

She ( the police lady ) went into the DPO office and come and said DPO said they will charge the guy to court on Monday. I asked my wife to tell him that I don't want to do court case again because I don't have any money to spend again.

And my wife left. It was later the other guys who contributed the money called me and started talking that why did my wife not send them back the money since they are not releasing the guy as agreed and why sending the money to the police lady. Me just tell them say make they go police station on Monday to sort it out themselves. Because the stress is too much and na me they spend money na police they collect m so I'm not longer interested in the case.

I have always heard bad things about the Nigeria police but this is the first time I experienced it first hand. All that those people care about is money and nothing else. I decided to share this just in case you have a similar case, police should be your last option or better still leave m for God. Those guys are money sucking vampires

Oga, some wahala is not worth it. Going to do police case ontop such amount means you will likely spend close to or more than the money you wish to recover. You will waste time you should use on better activity, finally the likelyhood you will carry bedbugs aka "students" to your house from police station is high. That one worse pass the 100k. Lol.
See, some time back, I got to learn a guest and his wife had stayed in my hotel without paying, they paid for a while, then owed for 2 days, paid one day, before you know the money had ballooned to 450k+, the man kept promising and the receptionist hid it so she does not loose her job. The man storied he went to Abuja to get money, leaving his nursing wife in the room, who refused to be evicted till her husband returned. Na so money pile to 450k and running. We had to get lawyer who petitioned police, the lady got arrested and taken to station. Last last she had to be released as a nursing mother. Lawyer advice us to cut our loses and run, atleast we had our room back to rent out. Na sk 450k lost, meanwhile we spent roughly 200k for the wahala. Total loss 650k. No be juju be dat?

nedekid:

Oga, some wahala is not worth it. Going to do police case ontop such amount means you will likely spend close to or more than the money you wish to recover. You will waste time you should use on better activity, finally the likelyhood you will carry bedbugs aka "students" to your house from police station is high. That one worse pass the 100k. Lol.
See, some time back, I got to learn a guest and his wife had stayed in my hotel without paying, they paid for a while, the owed for 2 days, paid one day, before you know the money had ballooned to 450k+, the man kept promising and the receptionist hid it so she does not loose her job. The man storied he went to Abuja to get money, leaving his nursing wife in the room, who refused to be evicted till her husband returned. Na so money pile to 450k and running. We had to get lawyer who petitioned police, the lady got arrested and taken to station. Last last she had to be released as a nursing mother. Lawyer advice us to cut out loses and run, atleast we had our room back to rent out. Na sk 450k lost, meanwhile we spent roughtoy 200k for the wahala. Total loss 650k. No be juju be dat?

Exactly why I said I wanted to drop the case because I'm already spending more money to recover the money.

Major update

One of their church members called us on Sunday afternoon that they have been able to contribute the money that they wanted to pay if they can release him on that Sunday but the police lady in charge of the case said NO we should wait till Monday.

When my wife got to the police station this morning the church guy sent her 76k instead of the 84k balance because they already deposited 20k on Friday which the police lady already collected. ( My wife told me later that day that after going back and forth what she later sent was 14k that the money will be the expenses to charge him to court on Monday even when we already told her we don't want to do court case again that the expenses is getting too much )

Now the reason why they pay 76k instead of 84k is because Mayowa was supposed to collect 8k delivery fee after successful delivery. But I don't want to pay that again because he has already made me spend money on police case. And to me he was also supposed to be responsible for part of that exepnses.

After going back and forth we agreed to collect the money and the police lady also agreed to return the one she collected on Friday. ( I was surprised and at the same time unbelievable. Shey Nigeria police dey do refund? )

Anyway according to them they will collect 10% of the total amount paid which is 9,600 Naira and refund the balance which they did true true.

So in total we spent 22,600 on police case including the percentage they collected after the money was paid. And over 21k on transport with a lot of stress. So all we have left at the end of the day out of the 104k was 52k.

Now the question is, is it Worth it? The answer is capital No. Reason because the time spent on this case can be used to do business that will generate more than the cash collected, I don't even want to talk about the stress that comes with it. But the most important thing is that the guy was able to learn his lesson, And I believe he will think twice next time what he went through the last time he use someone else's money to play virtual betting.

Thanks to everyone's suggestion, contributions and most importantly thanks to Nigeria police. However I wished the case could have been handled better than the way it was handled especially forcing my wife to send you that money on Friday.

telim:
use civil defence police are thieves

Happy new month sir