You have brought shame to the family.

I have taken my time before writing this.

Last week I got scammed for £42 by my first cousin.

Needless to say. I was furious.

This is the same cousin that when my dad passed away didn’t have the good manners to speak to me. His girlfriend I was cordial with because I bought her daughter some chocolate last year, she thanked me. It was through his girlfriend (a wholly innocent party in this) that the scam was created.

I am disgusted by his behaviour, naturally.

The money I gave was with a pure heart because I figured the price of being wrong was my cousin’s daughters future.

I am also disgusted by the fact that he’s scamming at 33. Yes I am merely 6 1/2 months older than this cousin so its not like he’s a child. He’s a grown man. And scamming.

I blocked him and his girlfriend which is a shame because she personally has done me no wrong in my life. But I was scammed once. I will not be scammed again.

What upset me was this rush to protect his father, my uncle, from what has happened. There was no rush to protect me, the victim of crime, but commiserations. Turns out there’s a lot of secrets in that family I am not privy to. And had some of those secrets been shared, I would have not fallen for the scam. I had absolutely no idea things were as bad as they were.

Let me be clear. My cousin is 33 years old, which means he is a grown man and made grown man choices. I am firmly of the belief that after the age of 25, you absolutely have to stop blaming your parents for your situation, so no matter how good or bad they are, everything after 25 is your personal fault and responsibility.

The truth is that there had to be a massive failure of parenting to get to this point. Everyone is fond of blaming my aunt, but my uncle, affable as he is would have had to have failed too in order for us to get to this point. This is not because of an abundance of resources, I know some children of the truly rich. A friend of mine, for example, her father was chief economist at KPMG, that man earned in a year more than I have earned so far in my life. I’m likely to get to his annual earnings by 40, God willing. And I have been paying my own bills and covering my own backside since 21.

My cousin lives with his parents, on his parents, at 33. Meanwhile I have been fully financially autonomous since January 2013, and I have lived outside of my parents household since 2014 it is unfathomable for me to live off my parents, even when my mum asks me to buy her stuff and she says she’ll pay me back, I just pay for it. Because she’s my mother and she didn’t penny pinch my childhood, why would I penny pinch her now?

This is a gross lack of discipline. Or an incredible lack of self esteem. It seems he’s seen everyone else doing so phenomenally well, we have Dr’s, Barristers, Accountants in abundance and a PhD in the family and that’s just the first 6 grandkids. He doesn’t think he can compete, so he doesn’t try. Instead he does this.

I tire of the commiseration “he is a disgrace…” That doesn’t help him. He’s 33 years old and he has a life expectancy of a goldfish if this is the path he wants to tread, Africa is not kind to thieves. Something must be done to reform his life. The West, counter intuitively cannot be the place for him until he reforms his life. There is absolutely no good in sending him to the West, where the police are profiling him and the are so eager to arrest him and send him back to his country. No, it would be a colossal waste of money. He has to reform in Sierra Leone before he can play with the big boys. Even those who don’t commit crimes in the West the police aren’t kind to let alone the immigration laws. So the West: The UK, Australia & New Zealand the USA and Europe are completely out of it. I know this to be true because I’ve had family member’s on dad’s side just as useless and they have realised the West, far from paradise, is hell on earth if one wants to make an honest living. And that £42? That was more than a week’s worth of food for me, he literally robbed me of food. May God guide him back to the right path and God protect me from further scams.

I’m not his parent, I am his peer, so it is not for me to discipline him. Why would I when this would be the first contact we’d ever have? For shame. If he doesn’t listen to his parents what makes you think he’ll listen to me? What makes you think I would want to hear his voice gloating when he’s scammed me. Just remove energy and move forward. God will bless me with more. I hope he enjoys that money, it will be the last he will get from me.

I have battled with thoughts on if I should tell his dad or not. I see no reason to, like I said, he hasn’t listened to his parents for 33 years this isn’t going to be the reason to start, I don’t believe in protecting people from their children, if your child is something you need to be protected from you have already failed. Whenever people come to my mum about me it is to bless her for me, because I have worked really hard to be a credit to my parents. I wouldn’t want them to be ashamed of me. “Your daughter sent me flowers when I was sick” “Your daughter remembered my grandchild’s birthday” “Your daughter lent me her car” “Your daughter arranged a surprise birthday party for you, You must be so proud of her.” For all my sins, no one has ever gone to my mother (or my dearly departed father when he was alive) and said I have been rude to them, or scammed them. Am I God’s warmest creature? No, but I am also not guilty of those sins at least. It also doesn’t bring me any joy to tell my uncle. On a week that I was intending to start a family group chat for Paris… this happens. This would be my first contact with my uncle since 2022. This is not what I want to discuss. Does it make me complicit when he does it again? Yes, but also is there anything anyone can realistically do at this point? No. If someone has taken to “International scamming” (I am in the UK he is in Sierra Leone,) then there is no hope for him. My mother, for all my sins, have never had to tell me not to scam people, especially my family.

I have 2 brothers who went down this path, one reformed, almost like magic of his own accord. He literally hit his own version of “rock bottom” which to the outside didn’t look any different to the numerous other “rock bottoms” we’d seen him descend to. He just decided to reform his life. 5 years sober in a few months. And I thank God for it. I wish dad was here to see it, but he did see some of it and I’m grateful for it. The other one decided to be a liability until he died and he died a horrific death at 47, complex, traumatising and enough to scare anyone straight. But also the saddest thing was his death was a relief. My life is markedly better without my eldest brother in it. There was no plan as to how my eldest brother was going to live until 50 and so he almost had to die, his existence was so precarious. Did it have to be so horrible? No. But no one had either the money or the inclination to keep him alive much longer and he fundamentally couldn’t provide for himself, because he’d been in that life for so long. This is the fate that awaits my cousin if he doesn’t reform. Death. And it is that fate I sought to “save him” from. But just like my brothers, I am not his saviour. He got himself into this mess, he’ll get himself out. That is a lesson I learnt from them. Hence immediately I blocked him, there is only one lifeboat out of this mess and its for me. As he has decided to be something I will have to protect myself from, protect myself I shall. I shall not seek to “help” again. May God have mercy on me, and if his child truly suffers as a result, that is a consequence. I felt so bad for the child. I recognised my own niece in her. A niece at one point I was seriously thinking of adopting. I thank God I didn’t. Someone else’s choices will never be my problem.

One thing I am proud of is that even though I fell for his scam, I sought help even during it, and I blocked him as soon as I found out. My father would have yelled. I just removed myself from the situation. So at least it can never be me again. That’s important. Lessons were learnt, my children will not hear me yelling down the phone saying “You are 33 years old! You are a DISGRACE!” I’m very much my father’s daughter, but in this case, there is a marked difference between my approach, and his. Dad always felt guilt for his position which was won through extreme tenacity and hard work, I will not let others guilt me into subsidising their lifestyle.

Another thing I’m annoyed about is he has my grandfather’s name. This cousin is named after his father, who was named after my grandfather. My beloved grandfather, who remembered my birthday and Christmas and would send me cards, who adored me and would call me beautiful. That grandfather. He has that man’s name, who is probably spinning in his grave that one of his grandchildren would so grievously transgressed against another. My poor grandad, at least he’s not here to know how his name is being used. Why is his name now in the mud? Why is he being disgraced? And there will be a cold day in hell before I tell my grandmother, like she needs problems in her life at her age. That is just sadism. This is why no son of mine is getting my father’s name. You need to earn his name, you should consider yourself blessed to be a part of his illustrious bloodline, disgrace him and you’re out.

I’m taking his dad to Paris later this year God willing, he’s taken £42 from all our fun. I hope he’s proud of himself. Because no one is proud of him.

Grace and Courage.

Annetta Mother Smith.