Mineral Pay scam in Zambia. Don’t fall victim.

Mineral Pay is the new scam making waves. Ponzi schemes have been around for quite some time, and they have evolved with the times. Typical modern systems are manifest on new technology or investment methods such as Bitcoin, ICOs (Smart contracts), and shares. One such current scheme taking prevalence in Zambia is Mineral Pay.

Please note that this is an old article and was rceovered from a text back up – some media has been lost and the two two fake domains/websites covered are no longer active. With this in mind, This article is just for reference and learning. Also, the advice given in this article is still valid. some of the website screenshots were possible through the use of the wayback machine.

Mineral Pay is a multilevel investment scam that has two known websites with different designs, but same content with just differences in contact information and country location mineralpayinternational.com is portrayed as a British company while mineralpay.com is parading as a Romanian company.

The sites have a design layout that is focused on convincing people to invest money with a promise of daily interest that can only be withdrawn from their system after 365 days for mineralpayinternational.com and 360 days for mineralpay.com. Both sites have five (5) investment levels set with a minimum and maximum deposit, and they go as follows:

Level 1 minimum deposit = $100 and maximum deposit = $500
Level 1 earning percentage is at 1.2% per day equaling 432% interest after 360 days and 438% for 365 days.

Level 2 minimum deposit = $501 and maximum deposit = $2,000
Level 2 earning percentage is at 1.40% per day equaling 504% interest after 360 days and 511% for 365 days.

Level 3 minimum deposit = $2,001 and maximum deposit = $5,000
Level 3 earning percentage is at 1.6% per day equaling 576% interest after 360 days and 584% for 365 days.

Level 4 minimum deposit = $5,001 and maximum deposit = $20,000
Level 4 earning percentage is at 1.8% per day equaling 648% interest after 360 days and 657% for 365 days.

Level 5 minimum deposit = $20,001 and maximum deposit = $50,000
Level 5 earning percentage is at 2% per day equaling 720% interest after 360 days and 739% for 365 days.

Mineral Pay also supposedly pay their investors 15% of whatever a person they refer deposits into their account. Their referral system has tiers to a level where someone can apparently receive a Mercedes-Benz as a gift.

Mineral Pay is operating two fake companies

As can be noticed, the interest rates are ridiculously high and unattainable.

The fake companies convince unsuspecting individuals to invest in their business as they are parading as a mineral investment company. The signup process is smooth on both sites and payments, or investments can only be successful through the use of Bitcoin or other Cryptocurrency, and this is so because Bitcoin is untraceable.

Mineral Pay has caught the attention of the Bank of Zambia that released an open letter press release saying:

The Bank of Zambia (BOZ) wishes to warn members of the public to be wary of a company trading as Mineral Pay, which is providing financial services without a licence issued by the BoZ. This is in direct contravention of Section 6(2) of the Banking and Financial Services Act No. 7 of 2017 (BFSA).

Further, the Bank has conducted areview of Mineral Pay’s business model and it is discovered that this company is engaging itself in a ‘money circulation scheme’, which is also prohibited under Section 157 of the BFSA.Mineral Pay has been offering a financial service by collecting deposits from members of the public.

In this regard, the BOZ in collaboration with the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) and Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) are currently investigating the company for activities contrary to the BFSA, as well as under the Prohibition and Prevention of Money Laundering Act respectively.

A money circulation scheme is an unsustainable investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation.

The money circulation scheme usually entices new investors by offering much higher returns than other legitimate investments, in the form of short-term returns, which are either abnormally high or unusually inconsistent with the norm. A continuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors in order to keep the scheme running.

The schemes are of various forms but all promise high returns to individuals who are recruited by depositing money into an account after which they are issued with a purported investment document.

The public is hereby warned to desist from getting involved in activities of a similar nature and is urged to be very cautious with any investment that promises huge returns in a very short period without any underlying economic activity. Further, the public is urged to only deal with financial service providers licensed by the BOZ, the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Pensions and Insurance Authority. Bank of Zambia

Bank of Zambia letter (open later). Find the letter here.

Mineral Pay as a scam convinces unsuspecting investors that they have money in their account as they can see the digital dollars in the account earn interest according to the signed up package.

All they have to do is wait for 360 or 365 days for a withdrawal. However, knowing that most people won’t be comfortable investing money for a year and would likely dig deeper into the authenticity of the business; they encourage investors to communicate via WhatsApp groups that are then told to sale digital dollars to one another in exchange for local currency through mobile money or direct hard cash. The person that sends the digital dollars from their Mineral Pay account in exchange for cash sends nothing but digital numbers which hold no value, the receiving party keeps the digital dollars up until the final day of withdrawal or may resell to another person and the cycle continues. However, when the time to make a withdrawal, the system supposedly fails, gets hacked or the company chooses whom to send money to via a Bitcoin wallet to convince potential as well as panicking investors.

Conclusion

Mineral Pay is a well thought out scam that is set out to dupe individuals out of their hard earned money. Don’t fall victim to it. Tell your friends, family, and neighbours about this. If you have any questions or contributions, please feel free to use the comment section below. Did you know from the beginning that Mineral Pay is a scam?