My gullibility and the costly shortcut to ‘new’ power meter

It made a lot of sense. It was convenient, it addressed an urgent need, it saved me time, it allowed my money to “work for me”.

I got a miracle call from Kenya Power. “Is this dash dash Mutuma Mathiu?” asked the man on the other side, using a name that is no longer in my documents and one I am called by only people I owe money, the manager at the factory where I worked as a butcher, banks and insurance companies.

When I am called by that name, I sit up and listen, because it is official.

“I hope you are not too busy. This is Kenya Power. I am calling in connection with your application for power in Industrial Area,” said the nice man on the phone. I haven’t applied for power in Industrial Area or any other address on earth, I explained.

“Really? But I am looking at your application in the system,” he said. Then I remembered I wanted to change my meter from that awful token thing, which runs out at the most inconvenient of times and which is subject to cuckoo billing where you can never really tell how much power you will get for your money.

Of course, all Kenya Power billing is cuckoo billing: there is no relationship between what you pay and what you consume.

“You know you have to pay a deposit of Sh2,500,” he said and took me through some  process. I was only half listening, the idea of spending a precious leave day on a KP queue was out of the question.

So I listened and played a game I play when I am idle; I tried to profile the guy from his linguistic footprint.

When you speak, you leave a smear of data, which tells people where you come from, where you went to school, for how long, your height, complexion. I exaggerate, of course.

I knew his tribe instantly. That is the easiest. (He was unvoicing his initial bilabial stops, for students of LING 101. Only two tribes carry that fossil.)

I could tell that he was from the old system of education, his words were old and I guessed his English vocabulary at no more than 5,000 words.

He was thin, a man who speaks with a lot of wind, his diaphragm unobstructed by fat. So I was talking to a man who was between the ages of 35 and 45 with a high school education and not enough money to get fat on beer and nyama choma. Definitely a clerk from Kenya Power. I relaxed.

So I offered to send the money by M-Pesa so he could pay for me and dispatch a team to fix the meter.

By and by, it transpired that there was no vehicle immediately available but if “fuel” could be found, a fundi could take a motorbike. So being neither too clever nor too foolish, I sent the deposit to Dominic and the “fuel” to Tom.

In addition, I sent the telephone number of my worker on the ground so that the job could be coordinated.

When the team called my worker, there was some conflict and he was “uncooperative”, according to Dominic. I brokered peace and I sat back to await the completion of the job.

A day later, I was doing an Uncle Nelson at Njuguna’s as the waiter skewered a sizzling cut of nyama choma. (I went on a memorable road trip more than 10 years ago with my uncle Nelson, a wonderful story teller and magnificent company.

As we ordered the meat, my uncle was nearly getting strangled by a mouthful of spit.

He had to keep swallowing to prevent his cheeks from bloating with the stuff. He was salivating at the mere sight of a side of goat hanging in the butchery. (It is a case of advanced conditioning.) So as I greedily regarded roast meat, the coin dropped.

I had been conned, scammed, robbed of my hard-earned money.

I was the easiest guy to con, because I thought I couldn’t be scammed. And I really should have known better.

Payments to Kenya Power are made at their offices, not by direct money transfers to their staff.

There are a thousand people I could have called for the right information, all perfectly willing to help.

But no, I had to go and get conned. So Dominic, Tom and the rest of that little gang, you got me 10-0.

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