Nigerians React as Popular Ponzi Scheme “Loom Money Nigeria” Abruptly Discontinues Payment Leaving Many Stranded

Just weeks after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warned susceptible Nigerians to stay away from Loom Money Nigeria, the popular Ponzi scheme has suffered a significant setback.

The platform is no longer yielding returns to earlier investors.

Recall that during a press briefing in May, the acting Director-General of SEC, Ms. Mary Uduk, warned Nigerians that the activities of the money-making scheme were fraudulent.

We are aware of the activities of an online investment scheme tagged ‘Loom Money Nigeria’. The platform has embarked on an aggressive online media campaign on Facebook and WhatsApp to lure the investing public to participate by joining various Loom WhatsApp groups…
We, therefore, wish to notify the investing public that the operation of this investment scheme has no tangible business model; hence, it’s a Ponzi scheme where returns are paid from other people’s invested sum. Also, its operation is not registered by the commission.

Mary Uduk, Acting Director General of SEC (May 2019)

Loom Money became popular on social media in May this year, promising investors huge returns in no time at all. With as low as N1000, one could invest in the Loom scheme and get back N8000 within 48 hours.

However, recent tweets from investors who went to the alleged offices of Loom Money Nigeria in Lagos showed that they were no longer getting feedback as regards the expected returns from Loom.

The rate of ‘cashing out’ appears to have slowed down considerably until the scheme could no longer pay back both the invested capital and the expected return.

Nigerians have been reacting on Twitter with a few people empathising with investors. But by far the most vocal have been critics calling out the scammed.

https://twitter.com/SamEba_/status/1141020152110170112

Loom has Crashed ! The one that happened in Western Nigeria is even Huge, LOOM had an “Head office” and they collected Daily “Loom” from people. Now they went to their “Office” and they found an empty Room”

That’s Very What ? Very Good!!! 😂🙌🏻

— Oluwa Tobi #EndSARS (@TobiDaGreatest) June 19, 2019

The number of Nigerians again scammed by Loom, in spite of the publicized exposure of MMM as a Russian-designed Ponzi scheme, can’t be ordinary. We have too many mentally sick people in Nigeria. This is confusing, it can’t be just greed.

— Gimba Kakanda (@gimbakakanda) June 20, 2019

Honestly this loom thing even being relevant in Nigeria in 2019 just shows how utterly poor we are. This is just MMM, ultimate cycler etc all over again. If people weren’t desperately poor they’d never in the 1st place think this was a way out.

— YNG KLN (@fukktheclubup) June 19, 2019

As the above Twitter reactions suggest, Loom is not the first Ponzi scheme in recent times whose censoring by SEC has been largely ignored by Nigerians. Repeated warnings by SEC went unheeded right before the 2016 MMM crash that left many penniless and devastated. Hopefully, the loses are contained this time around.