u/shy_primate

I have a relative who "invested" millions of birrs in a company called YBS trading. YBS trading has a lot of grocery stores in Addis Ababa. How they fund their business is they borrow money from regular citizens by promising a constant 10% monthly return or 120% annual fixed interest, which is a dead giveaway that this is a Ponzi scheme for anyone with a working brain. Mind you, in Ethiopia only banks and microfinance institutions are legally permitted to take deposits from the public at a fixed interest rate.

We've been telling my relative nonstop that's he's going to lose all his money and to immediately withdraw, but he was stubborn and he grew more stubborn as he kept getting those promised returns for more than a year and he even added more money to the principal.

About three days ago, YBS trading closed all of their offices and cut all forms of communications after giving their "investors" bounced checks. Around the same time, another company called 'Rekik trading plc' which used to operate the same scheme disappeared. And there were others that disappeared in the past few months.

YBS's founder and owner, 'Woldegiorgis Yilikal Bitew' recently opened an e-commerce platform called '888 Market' in Dubai. And now he is giving lame ass, inconsistent excuses for YBS's disappearance on his Facebook and TikTok page. In one post he said they closed their offices because Google Play Store has not approved their new app yet. I'm amazed this level of scammer couldn't come up with a more believable lie. You can see in the comment sections hundreds of people begging him to give their money back, some even saying they are about to off themselves.

Truly sad situation. There should be public awareness campaigns teaching people how to distinguish legitimate businesses from scams.