About 2 - 3 months ago, I sent @starkerz a DM stating my interest to be one of the onboarders of checkinwith.xyz. Starkerz asked me to meet a trusted guides to vouch for me by sending him a DM.
First, I met @beauty197, and she directed me to Focusnow (Fokusnow). According to her, he's incharge of vouching for people residing in Abia state, Nigeria which is where I reside. She said that she can only vouch for people in Lagos (the state she resides in). She said each guide can only vouch for a hiver that is in their state of residence.
I reached out to fokusnow. It started with some pleasantries. I told him my intentions of being an onboarder of checkinwith.xyz. I also told him that Starkerz asked me to get someone to vouch for me by sending him a DM in discord.
Fokusnow requested that we meet up physically so that he would tell me some things before he vouched for me. The distance from where I live to his city is over 45km, but due to the fact that the hospital I work in is located there, and I really want to be an onboarder, I decided to meet up.
Before applying to be an onboarder in checkinwith.xyz, I already started meeting different schools. I got my promotional banner ready, my road map (which I shared with some hive oldies and they approved), and also, I started saving some funds in my community account (@scifimultiverse and @hivestudents) to be able to fund the expenses. My preparations were yielding gradual results, but then, I needed support to encourage the students I brought to hive, thus, the reason why I wanted to be a checkinwith.xyz onboarder.
Due to the fact that I was waiting for Fokusnow to vouch for me, I halted all my activities. For weeks, I waited. One time, when I came to Aba (the city he resides), I called him to see if we could meet up, but he said he was busy.
I shared my project plans with Fokusnow which is to onboard students in a large scale by going to their university campuses. This was the sole purpose of creating Hive Students Connect Community.
After sharing my project plans with Fokusnow on the 4th of November 2025, I saw his post on the 21st November 2025. In the post, he talked about how he went to a university to onboard students and he plans on onboarding some 18k students.
I talked to him about it, but he refused to acknowledge the fact that he hijacked my project. Instead of admitting it, he began to tell me how he started web 3 promotion in the legacy chain. He told me about the people he brought to the legacy chain. He talked about a Roadshow he hosted as the founder of steemAlive, and how he met students individually to talk to them about steemit.
However, in hive, except when I told him about my project of onboarding students in a large scale, he has never posted or probably thought of such projects. He promotes hive and onboards businesses through spendhbd. However, I promote hive and onboard students.
I'm onboarding people that will not just spendhbd, but I'm seeking for diverse types of people that will impact hive and add value to its utility.
I've been trying to make him understand, but he refused to see the fact that he plagiarized my project and is still not taking responsibility for it.
Due to how he bragged about being the brains behind Campus connect community in the legacy chain, I chatted one of the mods to enquire. However, the mods denied it. In Campus connect intro post, it did not state anywhere that Fokusnow is a team member. Again, in campus connect whatsapp group, Fokusnow is not an admin.
I even proposed that we team up since we shared the same goal of hive promotion, but he snubbed the idea.
According to him, "You have discredited my work enough and cleverly denied how long and how far I have gone in Blockchain promotion."
I don't know how I discredited his work when he openly plagiarized or should I say, hijacked my project.
I noticed one of his very close friends, @beauty197 made a post stating that she printed 100 flyers for the university of lagos. She started it a few days after I told Fokusnow that he hijacked my project.
Here's a video of the entire chat. He asked me to bring it onchain and so I did.
After the entire drama with the project "hijacking" by one of spendhbd trusted guides, I became doubtful of the legitimacy of these businesses actually accepting HBD payments.
I remember once when I was encouraged by @starkerz to spendhbd, so, I decided to go spend some HBD. I did this to test the realness of these businesses.
I interviewed a lot of businesses. About 11 of them. These businesses are in diverse locations. It was hard to locate cause' I'm not very familiar with Aba even though I work in one of the biggest hospitals there, however, with their addresses, I was able to locate them.
I did these interviews in two separate days. The first one was on Monday 8th December 2025. The second was on Friday, 12th December, 2025.
Some of the business owners spoke igbo in the conversations. I will share these videos, and then, give a summary of what was discussed in the video.
In the videos I'm about to show, I did not show the faces of the business owners.
The Businesses I visited on Monday, 8th December 2025
- Crunchies and roots
- Orason group of companies
- Romey
- Grand options
- Ever prince
- Classic kitchen
- Kcee kcee supermarket
The Businesses I visited on Friday, 12th December 2025
- Emmylikes Game store
- Timjan
- Chicken Republic
- Sinless foods limited
So, Below is the details of my visit.
GRAND OPTIONS.
Business details: This business sells Cometics, snacks e.t.c
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of interview: 8th December 2025
Interview details:
The first thing I noticed about this business is the Mobile number.
Its not really a confluence to say that the business is not existing or something. The business owner may decide not to put their mobile details online.
This was the first business I interviewed. I met the business owner and we talked about the HBD project.
This business is owned by a Woman. I asked her if she knows how spendHBD works and she replied that its her sister that operates the app and her sister is not around. She added that unless i would call Fokusnow (Charles) to come do the transaction. She asked me to wait for Charles to come around. I asked if she can operate the app by her self, but she said "no."
This brought a thought to my head. "Unless i will call Charles." Does that mean that charles is the one operating the account?
When I asked her how it works, she told me that they scan the app and Charles will give them cash. Welp, for this business, I was not successful in paying HBD. I paid in NGN and went further to the next business.
ROMEY SUPERMARKET
Business details: Sales cosmetics, groceries, Wine e.t.c
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of Visit: 8th December 2025
Visit details:
The next business I interviewed was Romey. I met the business owner. He said he has an account with hive. He said that they do buy things from him and pay with HBD but the person that does it stopped coming.
Initially, he said he's the one operating the business account on hive. He said Charles told him that hive was doing a cash back promo, so, Charles brought his team to patronize him. However, after some time, they stopped coming. Up until when i visited, They have not
He said he still accepted HBD payments but when I tried to pay with HBD, he told me that the phone where he had the keychain app was not there with him (he was holding two phones at the moment). He later went further to ask if he can download the app and get back his account, which I said yes.
If he had the keychain app, why would he ask me to download it again? Welp, maybe it is because he wanted to receive funds for my purchase, or maybe, he don't have the app anywhere else. The last review from his business was a year ago.
I noticed something amidst, so I asked him again, "On your own, do you really know how to operate the account?"
He did not tell me a "yes" or a "no." His response was: "I was telling Charles to put me true but he asked me to pay him to teach me. Because of that, I asked him to forget about it." I told him that hive is free.
So, he wanted to download the app, but he could not find his keys. I asked him to check in his mail to see if they sent a master password but he didn't see any.
I asked who created the account, and he said that Charles did. Charles created the account for him and sent the keys to him. He told me that Charles has the key.
I asked him to hit Charles up again to send the keys.
I got his phone number though, and went to the next business.
Moving On...
EVER_PRINCE UNISEX SALOON.
Business details: Barbing saloon for both male and female hair cut.
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of Visit: 8th December 2025
Visit details:
This business is a barbing saloon. I visited there and I got a haircut. The owner of this business is accepted HBD payments.
The price for a haircut was about 0.4HBD but i shared 1HBB. Tipped him the rest.
Thats me, getting a haircut
He was able to independently operate hive keychain app to receive payments. According to him, the reason why he was able to do it was because he's an oldie in hive. He already knew about spendhbd before went to fokusnow to onboard his business.
He added that he wanted fokusnow to onboard another business for him, but he did not get any response up till the date I made the video.
CLASSIC KITCHEN.
Business details: This business is a restaurant that sales food.
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of Visit: 8th December 2025
Interview details:
I got water from the business and wanted to pay with HBD. The waiter don't know what HBD was. She directed me to her boss maybe her boss may know. I asked her boss but she also don't know what HBD is. I showed her the distriator website where her business was listed, but she also didn't know what HBD was or how her business for there. I paid for the water with naira and I left to the next business.
I saw some reviews under this business, and i'm kind of confused. How did they review a business that did not know what HBD is? Who received the payments in HBD?
Anyways, moving on...
KCEE KCEE SUPERMARKET
Business details: The business sales groceries e.t.c
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of interview: 8th December 2025
Interview details:
When I visited this business, I did not meet the business owner, but I met his brother. I proposed to pay with HBD for whatever I'm going to purchase but the guy said they don't accept HBD. I tried to make him recall by telling him details of HBD payments but he didn't. After showing him the distriator website, he remembered, he said that Charles come with some hivers, they buy things from the business. After the purchase, Charles will give them cash. The guy said its been a very long time they came last. Almost a year.
This was from the business owner's brother, and not the business owner.
CRUNCHIES AND ROOTS
Business details: Sales foods, drinks and other things.
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of visit: 8th December 2025
Details of visit:
Crunchies and roots are two different stores under one roof. Roots is like a branch of crunchies that sales majorly drinks. The also sale food.
I visited both crunchies and roots but none of them accept HBD payments. They didn't know what HBD is. I asked the waiter to call their supervisor (manager) and the manager did not know what HBD is. I showed them the distriator all where the business was listed but they were shocked at how the business got there. When I got home, I got an accountants number that works there. I asked the accountant whether or not they receive HBD payments, but he also don't know what HBD is.
The most confusing thing to me here is that, there are many reviews in this business, most of which came from @nellybestie and @ugoglory. Maybe they loved the business a lot which made them frequent they it, but the golden question here is, how did they pay? Cause' the business staffs didn't know what HBD is.
Another thing I noticed is that this business have no mobile number. Maybe the onboarder forgot to add a mobile number or something. Anyways, moving on.
ORASON GROUP OF COMPANIES
Business details: Sales electric materials including light bulbs, chandelier etc.
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of visit: 8th December 2025
Visit details:
I got there and I began a market survey. I asked the price tags of some items and I was told. After that, I proposed to pay with HBD, but they guy that attended to me didn't know what HBD is. He pointed me to the business owner. I met the business owner and asked to pay with HBD but he too don't know what HBD is.
I showed him the distriator website but instead of making him remember, he was shocked and scared at how his business got there. He talked about the possibility of scammer putting his business there.
He was curious how spend HBD works, and I told him about it.
I checked his business review page but there was no review.
The next businesses were visited on Friday, 12th December 2025.
EMMYLIKE GAME STORE
Business details: Sale games and game accessories like gamepad (game console) e.t.c
Guide: @bummblebee
Date of visit: 12th December 2025
Visit Details:
I first went to this business in Monday, 8th December 2025 but they were not open. The neighbors told me that they don't open on Mondays.
The business owner was not around when I visited on the 12th December 2025, however, the person that manages the store was around.
For this visit, I went with another hiver. I would not want to mention his name to avoid issues between him and anybody.
So, I asked the business if they receive HBD payments but they don't know what HBD was. I showed them the distriator website of they can remember or something, but still, they don't know how their business got to distriator. I went further to call out the mobile number on the business, but they compared it with the business mobile number, and it was not a match.
The manager said they knew the business owner even before they became the manager, so, they knew his mobile numbers. The number in the website is not that of the business. Welp, I told them about hive and spendhbd and they googled it to check if its legit or not.
I got the managers mobile number, and I headed over to the next business. So, moving on.
TIMJAN BUSINESS
Business details: This business sales medicinal solutions.
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of visit: 12th December 2025
Visit details:
I could not add both videos in one. My capcut began to act up. It was not responding and my phone began to hang. I think it was a memory issue or something.
When I got to the business, the business owner was not around. I met her secretary who refused to give me her number probably because she has not seen me in the business before. I called out the number in the distriator website and she confirmed that it's her bosses number, so, I placed a call across. The business owner asked me to wait for her.
The boss came back and I talked to her about spendhbd. She did not know what it is, so, I had to show her the distriator website. When she saw a picture of one of the reviews, she identified the person that did the review. She went further to say that they told her that spendhbd is a cashback system.
She said she didn't know that her details were placed online, neither does she actually know what spendhbd is. She said she decided to sign up since the initiative will benefit the person that did the review.
I asked about what they purchased from her and her response was "he bought her product and gave her the exact price of the product in cash, not HBD." After that, she don't know anything else.
I explained how the initiative works to her, and she proposed that the previous account (which she has no access to) be closed. She said she wants to start a new with me. I should onboard her. Welp, I just collected her mobile number. I will have to get back to her later after I get information of whether or not its possible.
Moving on.
CHICKEN REPUBLIC
Business details: Sales foods, drinks, e.t.c
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of visit: 12th December 2025
Visit details:
I went to this business in company of the same hiver that escorted me to Emmylike business.
We got there and I got two bottles of coke. One for me, and one for him. I wanted to pay with HBD but they don't accept HBD payments.
I showed the waitress the distriator website but she don't know how the business got there, and did not accept HBD payments.
I asked to speak to their manager but I didn't know that the manager is the person that was beside the waitress. She was looking at me like a scammer trying to do fake transfer to their business.
Its kind of strange cause' there are quite a lot of reviews from this business. I wonder how payment was made. Anyways, moving on.
SINLESS FOODS LIMITED
Business details: Sales organic milk and other organic products.
Guide: @fokusnow
Date of visit: 8th December 2025
Details of visit:
When I got there, I noticed some renovation going on. The owner told me that he's changing his business from a place where he sales organic products to an event center.
He said he knows what HBD is, and he do accepts HBD payments. However, he don't actually have enough information and can not operate the account by himself.
He further mentioned that his guide's dad (Charles dad) taught him the business and did not actually throw more light on how the spendhbd works.
He said that he needs more information on how it works and handling his account. He said he don't have total access to his account and don't do transactions.
I asked him how the transactions works, whether people buys from him and give him cash. He respond that people pays into his account, but his guide will be the one to do the conversion in his account and give him cash. He said he can't remember vividly how much they give him per HBD converted but, he went further to add that they give him NGN500 per HBD. I Explained everything and tell him the actual range of HBD.
I discussed a little of how hive works with him, and shared some information with him. I exchanged contacts and left...
AFTER THE VISITS, MY THEORY IS AS FOLLOWS
He has the account keys of these businesses (maybe two or more, I dont know. But what I do know is that he controls the accounts of these businesses as seen in Grand Options, Romey, e.t.c).
When he tells people to patronize the businesses, he sends the HBD to his account (swaplane) and give the business cash (Naira) (As seen in Timjan and Sinless). This defeats the purpose of spendHBD which is to teach businesses about HBD and how to be independent when using spendHBD. In this case, Fokusnow is like a middleman between the business and the consumers (As seen when the owner of Grand Options asked me to wait for him to come).
Fokusnow and Bummblebee opens a spendhbd page for a business without the consent of the business owners, just as seen in Orason, Emmylike, Crunchies, and Classic Kitchen. Given the fact that he holds the keys to Romey business hive account, there is a high probability that he controls these accounts too. When users send HBD to these business hive accounts, he gives the business cash and holds the HBD without the business owners actually knowing what is going on in the background.
From the information I got from these businesses, these are my thoughts. Maybe there are things that I didn't add or something. Maybe someone can analyze the video and bring up a new theory or something.
Thank you.
@hivewatchers
@quiltyparties
@starkerz
Posted Using INLEO
When I first heard about this, the main thing that struck me is that there was no logical reason for any of these issues in the first place. If a business owner can't be found/has no interest when someone tries to onboard a business, the person simply moves on to another business. If a business owner is interested but doesn't understand how Hive works, they and their staff should receive adequate training. Most HBD businesses don't process funds the same day; they hold HBD and don't convert into their local currencies until a sum builds up. Simply discussing this with someone who has B2B experience would be sufficient to set any onboarder on the right path.
In regards to the student project: A similar observation. Onboarding thousands of students without giving them some purpose on chain will never go well. This is another massive learning experience and requires a financial investment. It will ultimately cost more money than it can ever make any organizer in any way. Those who do onboarding of this type already know this. Using an undeveloped plan without correcting it is pointless as it won't lead to success.
What I don't understand is why any of the issues that happened did so. Doing something inaccurately and in a silo will never lead to long-term success, either personal or for Hive.
The 'issues' happened because Fokus didn't want anyone to share, or find out about his gravy train
Both fokus and beauty operate 'fluidity' accounts that circle the HBD. Check the route of the 2hbd the new users receive and the transaction timings. There is no way these 'new users' have exclusive custody of their keys. Both fokus and beauty operate almost identical MOs following each others moves.
Questions have been asked by myself and others in the past about this project only to be met with accusations of being negative and trying to diss the project.
Well done to this young man for taking the initiative and doing what needed to be done, actually visiting these stores.
I think one of the quality of a good onboarder is to know when to stop promoting a business or an idea. There's no need to onboard someone when they don't actually have interest of what the onboarder is promoting. It may be a waste of time and resources cause' there's a high probability that the person may come onboard and not be serious with the project. They'll just do it to stop the onboarders persuasion.
Before I came up with this project, I actually put this into consideration. We came up with a plan for this. I think I'll communicate this in your DMS to avoid my idea being plagiarised again.
I can't believe it!? No, say it isn't true?
It's what it is. All videos are taken from my discussions with the businesses.
who would have thought? eh , a guy self named @fokusnow has fucked us now. 🤣. I'm off across the city to get a vouched from @imgonnatakeallyourhiveinanelaboratescam even though he doesn't know me from Adam.
That guy will sort you right out. I have heard he is a stand up dude!! 🤣🤣
Lol.
Fucken retards huh?
Don't worry mate, there is still some juice in the tank 😃
Lol. Chill, it's all good 😃
Is @fokusnow the same as @focusnow who is mass flagged for plagiarism or whatever by hivewatchers? 😯🙃
you can make an account Trumpmen and nobody will know its you lol
😂
You couldn't make it up, could you?
Read the comments on this post...
https://ecency.com/hive-175254/@focusnow/3-reasons-why-social-media-marketing-is-good-for-small-business
How did this go unnoticed? Didn't fokusnow receive a big hbd loan as well? You'd think this would've been checked before hand.
No, it didn't go unnoticed. Investigation (Harris is a sperate discussion) started because of his involvement in project hope and his onchain past behaviour.
He did, 1500hbd. He also still carries a 40K delegation from the people behind distriator.
I find it unbelievable that people think that decentralised means normal rules of good business practise don't apply. A simple check back would have found him to be a completely dodgy fucker.
It's also not a great look if you go around marketing hbd loans to "businesses" and then grant the loaner a delegation and massive votes on their posts... you'd think they're supposed to pay the loan back through businesses
I don't really think it was plagiarism (I don't know the full story). However, I saw that he has a history of withholding keys, which was why he was banned in June 30th 2020 https://peakd.com/hive-175254/@guiltyparties/qcrbmt
Do they get money from dhf or the community for all of this? Spendhbd and so on
Fucken scammers mate. All of them.
That seems like it, exploiting and extracting the reward pool...
Same old story from that part of the world.
Don't worry! Gofundme is not allowed there but HIVE is special and we have more anti abuse resources than Gofundme…..
Correction, we have less than 10 people who do abuse at a high level and Gofundme is a giant business with a whole bunch of employees and lots of cash flow.
We are doomed!!!
Seemingly so.
We should keep onboarding more users though! That's all we need is more users that do the same thing so we can fix it.
What could go wrong!
you get a big chunk that same way from posh, much more then spendhbd does
Compare ananas with apples 🤣
reward pool = reward pool
where do you think your payments from posh comes from?
Posh is not systematically offloading HIVE at our expense.
If it is. Please prove it.
Every time someone mentions posh when there is a scam, the conversation stops being serious.
Lots of things are funded through the reward pool that are “wrong” but not inherently immoral.
Perpetuating scams via the reward pool is immoral. Even if it can never fully be stopped, it doesn’t matter.
We should all have a conversation about posh in a serious way but in my mind it needs its own bucket.
Sorry I’m intense about this! I think I’m just having a moment!
Hope things are going well on your end!
I don't think posh does things via WhatsApp chats nor deceives the community with false onboards and results, it's all visible, if you don't agree you can downvote it 🤷
more like comparing poop to pizza 😂
i didn't want to sound too vulgar 🤣
Not all.
Please, don't use the wrong doings of a few to judge all. The fact there is a rotten egg in-between good eggs doesn't mean all other eggs are rotten. I guess you probably had a bad experience with some people, however, not everyone is bad.
You're all as bad as each other...all grubbing for a few cents any way you can with no care as to how it happens. And all the while making Hive look like a fucken joke with your spend HBD posts and other such shit.
So that's how it is...
I think you should actually know someone first before you say something like this. I don't think it's okay to generalize it. It would not be okay to say Mr A is a scammer because Mr B who is from the same country as Mr A, scammed somebody.
My country has honest people just that the deeds of the bad once has overshadowed the honest ones.
I don't make SpendHBD posts, and I have never made SpendHBD posts. If you check through my posts, you'll see that I share my perspective of the topic I write on. No AI. No plagiarism. No Spamming. Though my word construction is not top notch, I try. It's calm though. I respect your perspective.
If you act like it is not a bigger issue for some places than others than it is a scam.
I like a lot of you guys.
But the Nigerian Prince scam was huge before the internet even existed. So like we cannot sit here and act like reality is not reality.
Maybe he was a little over the top but I would argue what he is trying to say is coming from a real place and it is a problem every western country has to deal with.
Well, I try to understand this but at some point it crosses the line with the statements and constant downvote actions. Yes, Nigeria is one of the top 10 countries in the world with high fraud rates but so is India and Venezuelans and some other countries. There have been two incidents on hive regarding money but i didn’t see anybody referencing the country of those individuals. It’s unfortunate especially for those that add value and maintain their reputation.
It’s almost the same things that annoys me with certain feminists that say all men are the same when they discuss rape and domestic violence.
I respect you so much @hurtlocker! But you need to see that this user has hatred on lock for people from my country and it so obvious. Even this user @nwothini335 is dv by him. I just had to say this because it’s too much.
Why are you here shooting the messenger reporting on a bad actor in the spendhbd system? Maybe take it up with @starkerz if you have a problem with it, rather than the one guy who seems to wanna make sure the reward pool isn't being exploited through it.
I don't really know the main source of the money. Probably from votes on posts. I don't know. Maybe they can answer this question.
Rewards from posts come from the reward pool, so that's exploitation of the hive community
disgusting
We are surrounded by social engineering scammers in today's society. There needs to be WAY more awareness. We cannot stop this either. It will only get worse with AI.
Is that what happened here? IDK.
But that is how people get scammed these days. People need to stop trusting people. Stop giving people your freaking keys. Stop pretending like everyone is friends and the world is sunshine and rainbows.
There will always be good and bad people on HIVE and we just need to accept that.
Stay safe. I am sorry this happened to you. Thank you for posting it on HIVE so we can have a better paper trail of these things and people can at least know about it.
The other person also has a right to defend themselves. This is HIVE and no one can stop people from making a defense for themselves.
Thank you for putting yourself out there. It is not easy to publicly admit something like this happened. I wish more people would speak up when this stuff happens but I can understand why people don't. It is not an easy thing to do.
Truth is, there will always be good and bad people everywhere. Even in hive, we have honest people, and we have dishonest ones. No one believed that potato king will pull off what he did a few weeks back, but then, life happened.
Actually, I was not scammed. Some business which the onboarder claimed to receive HBD payments end up not knowing what HBD is. Some actually knew what HBD is but they could not directly control their accounts. They asked me to wait for Fokusnow to process my payments when I offered to pay with HBD. Some business were onboarded in distriator without the consent of the business owners.
There are many reviews under most of these businesses that did not know that their business is online.
The major thing I don't seem to understand is that how did these reviewers make payments? I guess only the onboarder can tell us if he wants to.
Yea the Potato King is interesting. Where that story is going who knows man. That whole thing is out of control.
I didn't think you were scammed and you have not done anything to make me think you are a scammer.
I also think the question is, what is the goal with projects like this? Like what does "success" look like? What are the metrics? And how can we prove it is good or bad with numbers? What all needs to be achieved for the project to end?
I think a lot of times those things aren't considered and things usually get weird. But people's results and their intent both matter. We cannot prove intent. Only they know that, but we should be able to prove results. Where are these new Hivians that should exist from using HBD and what do they do? 🤷♂
Like they are doing something with HBD and how is that helping the ecosystem and where is that money going? This is a blockchain, I think these questions can be answered with numbers and not anecdotal stories like people usually provide in these situations.
What will be the end result of your investigation? IDK, too many ideas are flying around for me to be confident on what we get out of this and who all stays mad at who.
Well done and thank you for this expose. Hopefully some rose tinted glasses will now be removed and some serious action taken.
Good luck with your new sign ups. If they need small delegations to give them a start, give me a shout.
Best wishes.
I hope the spendhbd team takes action on these. I just did my research and shared it online.
Thanks a lot.
Scammers, the lot of you.
This is just sad...extremely sad.
Why is it that wherever we go, there are just people trying to game a project or system?
I mean, I know the reason is that the worst thing that can happen is a reputation hit. There is no real consequence of getting caught.
The bitter truth is - scammers are everywhere. All we can do is protect ourselves against them and teach other people how to protect themselves.
I believe we all share the same goal that is strengthening and evolve Hive ecosystem.
Instead of fighting each other, let’s bring calm, respect and openness to the conversation.
Criticism is not an attack, it’s an opportunity to improve.
If we work together and focus on solutions rather than conflicts we can build something more sustainable for everyone.
Your point is factual. Criticism is not hatred. However, not many people share this perspective. I just hope that our shared goal of strengthening the hive ecosystem would be accomplished.
Don't worry! All we need is more users! It will fix this problem!
Another day, another story.
Thank you for letting me know.
You're welcome
These people are ruining the name of hive and the distriator and spendhbd project name and all who are associated to it
Unfortunately, this is true. It's quite unfortunate
It name is scam game, in slow mode . With slow mode, you make users - people forget about this in long-term , and when you find out, they have long time back walk out what coins and you have nothing to do, same thing going what ideas what you put out , and they been taken from you 🤷♂️☕
It may be forgotten in the long run but then, it will go down in the history of hive that such thing happened. Nonetheless, I'm not actually a fan of remaining in the past. Moving forward while learning lessons and improving oneself is something I think people should do.
Color me surprised 😯
Actually, I'm not. I heard quite a lot of things which I initially defended. However, I began to doubt when I thought of it deeply.
I was ironic
I've heard something shabby was going on, but that's way bigger than I expected. Thanks for your investigation, it was quite extensive.
I guess everyone has certain threshold and can get corrupted by power or money. And for people from poor countries, even a few dollars could be still worth scamming the others.
Rigged, considering you could actually do pretty well by being a good actor here, at least for standards the third word.
Before now, there's been quite a few side talks going on about the validity of the businesses in Aba. I believe that, the money gotten from being genuine, transparent and true, is better than the money gotten through scamming or stealing.
Well, it's definitely off my radar, not going to visit Nigeria anytime soon :) Japan or LatAm feel more intriguing.
Anyway, you did a great job. It's sad that the job needed to be done, but still.
Hello friends
I haven't been active for a while now and this is me stumbling upon this for the case of the emmylike game store which I listed.
The business owner is a friend of mine as we do something similar in terms of business and I met with him and opened the hive account from his own device after talking to him for about an hour about hive and spendhbd.
He wasn't showing much seriousness afterwhich he lost complete interest.
Though I tried talking to him about it he wasn't much Interested.
The ones u probably met are new ones our newly employed or probably under a new management but if I clearly remember i know the owner of that gameshop and can provide other evidence if needed.
The accounts were created in the it should.
Preparing my response....
@hivewatchers
@quiltyparties
@starkerz
Hmmmm mentioning me as a close friend of @fokusnow and printing fliers just few days after you mentioned your project to him is a fat lie.
Below are few links of marketing, mentorship and onboarding that I and a few in my team have done in Lagos.
https://ecency.com/hive-106130/@beauty197/catch-them-young-onboarding-three
https://ecency.com/hive-106130/@beauty197/spendhbd-marketing-at-the-university
https://ecency.com/hive-106130/@talktofaith/lagos-spendhbd-marketing-in-unilag
There might be more link of reports if anyone takes time to search for it.
I don't just onboard them and run away I create watspp groups were I add them and try my best to mentor them, I also revisit them in school to see how they are doing, it didn't just start because you mentioned it to @fokusnow.
Infact the said university He visited I was once there with @meymeyshop in search of students when I visited Aba Abia state but unfortunately it was during holiday.
So onboarding students and mentoring them is what I have been doing way back here in LAGOS STATE.
And am just hearing about it from for the first time, you never mentioned it to me.
It is wonderful to see people trying to use HBD as a payment method. That does a lot more to add to the legitimacy of the platform than the usurious interest rate.
The problem with using crypto for payments is that it only really works when the owner of the business is in the mood to accept crypto. I suspect that few owners are willing to train employees on crypto.
To this date, I haven't used crypto to buy anything outside the offerings on the platform.
PS: it is really sad to see people downvoting your posts as it looks like you are writing your own posts and are engaging in the platform.
!WINE
Spendhbd is actually a nice initiative.
True. Not many people are willing to leave the usual mode of payments and incorporate spendhbd as a means of payments. Though it's not impossible to convince businesses to accept it. It will take some time, patience and training as well.
I don't really know why's this. I don't just let it bother me anymore. Thanks for asking.
I suspect that acceptance of crypto will start with business to business transactions. Such transactions center on well defined contracts and with people who are seeking streamlined alternatives to banks and cash.
B2B transactions often involve accountants. Accountants are more likely to learn new payment techniques than cash register clerks.
!ALIVE
Adopting crypto payments in our daily shopping is not something that can be easily done. It requires intense training, and a lot of learning resources to ensure that the user gets every bit of it. I think it's not just about teaching the slender and receive about the given project, but going a step forward to give them the basics of how the Blockchain works and what happens behind the scenes.
Crypto adoption for daily transactions would not happen immediately, but it will take time.
Downvotes are not sad! Stop this nonsense please!
I totally agree.