THE AMAZING FACT

Sometimes, certain situations we encounters or experiences makes a genuinely good person turn off his/her humanity or emotions. And it most times, stays turned off.
There was something that happened last year. I wouldn't say I was scammed but when I think about it, I still feel I was.
One night, just before 8pm, a Facebook friend had messaged me. It wasn't the first time (it was the third time) we had had an inbox conversation and so when he had said good evening, I had replied like an old friend will, he went straight to the point and told me why he was in my inbox that night. He said he had to make a transfer to someone but he couldn't because he had network issues or so. He said it was urgent. And that I was the only one who could help him. He said I just needed to make a transfer on his behalf and the following day, he would return the money back. I didn't ask questions. I trusted him. We aren't best buddies on here but I must have trusted that since he was older than I am, plus he always wrote about God, he wouldn't be trying to make a living scamming people. Or not.
I was wrong. I have short term memory loss (I forget things that don't matter easily) and so I had actually forgotten I had transferred money to someone on his behalf the night before.
Not until he came to my inbox by noon the following day, did I remember? He had written "I learnt that you sent money to someone."
Learnt? Are you okay? How can you be learning when it was you that asked me to make the transfer. I had replied back.
He said it wasn't him. He had gone ahead to say his account was hacked and that he was totally unaware of any transactions that took place.
How convenient. Few hours hacking.
I wasn't buying it. Why? He still sounded like the person who had chatted with me the previous day asking for help. Same writing style. Same short hand pattern. Everything was same, when I transferred the money, I didn't go back to tell him I had made a transfer. So how did he know I had sent money to someone the night before?
I told him if he needed money, he could have genuinely asked and I would consider giving him and not using this method to go about it.
He still insisted his account was hacked. He didn't apologize neither did he offer to pay half or all the money that I transferred on his behalf.
I was hurt because I trusted him. Because my trust failed me. If I had been a bit skeptical, if I had ignored his messages, I wouldn't have suffered that loss albeit small.

Two days after that incident, someone came to my inbox asking for financial help and because I was still nursing my wound, I declined and I didn't feel sorry about it. If that incident didn't happen, I am dead sure I would have helped.
I told my friend about the inccident and she was annoyed I could send money to someone I hadn't met just because he had said he would pay back. She went ahead to say I was lucky he hadn't asked for a hundred grand, I would have been incurring a heavier loss.
Why am I writing this now? I thought about it last night after having read a post on my news feed about these scammers and I realized that this could be a new method. A new scamming method.
You have to be double sure. If it isn't a friend -- someone you know personally, be double sure. People aren't always what they portray themselves to be.

It's a jungle out there. Stay safe!!!