Leydi Mariam Varela, a resident of San Antonio de los Baños in Artemisa, shared two videos on Facebook - with about an hour's difference - to report that she fell victim to a scam when she purchased an electric battery for 75,000 Cuban pesos, money she gathered with great sacrifice amid the crisis the country is experiencing.
In the first video, it explains that she acquired the battery two days ago and received an invoice with a phone number that supposedly supported two months of warranty. When she tried to make a claim by calling that number, the person who answered was not the original seller. The individual who responded immediately blocked her on WhatsApp.
"It was 75,000 pesos, I supposedly have a two-month warranty, and now I call to make my usual claim with my paperwork and my number, and the girl who answers tells me that she bought the line on Facebook," Leydi recounted, visibly outraged.
The woman indicated that the scammers claim to be from Marianao, in Havana, and announced that she would post the phone number in the comments of her video to alert other potential victims and ask them to inform her if more people have been deceived in the same way.
"You all know everything one has to give up, stop buying, stop eating, in order to afford a battery, to bring a bit of light into their home," he expressed, describing the burden that amount represents for a Cuban family that is also facing blackouts of up to 36 and 40 hours in Artemisa.
In the second video, Leydi shares an unexpected twist: the person who currently holds the phone line contacted her, unblocked her on WhatsApp, and they spoke via video call.
According to what that woman explained to him, she bought the number from a "quimiquero" without knowing that it had been used for scamming.
"She is just another poor unfortunate like me, who was able to buy the line now because a supposed chemist sold it to her," Leydi recounted, although she remains determined to track down the original owner of the line, who will have to answer.
"It’s suffocating what we’re experiencing; not only do we have no electricity and no water, but also the food situation, the state of the country, and then some bandits come (...), come to do these things. Hey, they don’t have an ounce of humanity, of compassion," he said with a shaky voice.
The woman assured that, although it may take her months, she will find the person responsible: “With God in front of me, I leave everything in His hands, and God up there is with me; I am going to get through this.”
The use of phone lines obtained from the informal market as a shield to conceal the identity of scammers is a tactic that is on the rise in Cuba.
This type of fraud involving electrical equipment has grown amid the energy crisis: faced with the inability to rely on the national electrical system, many Cubans turn to the informal market to buy home batteries, and this desperation is exploited by sellers who deliver defective products filled with sand or cardboard, or who simply disappear after receiving payment.
In May, a woman reported that she had lost 70,000 pesos after transferring them to a WhatsApp account of one of her contacts, who allegedly offered her cash in return, in a scam that is repeatedly carried out with impunity throughout Cuba.
"I had 70 thousand pesos in my account and needed to withdraw them, so I agreed to send them to him in exchange for cash. I repeat: he was one of my contacts, and I knew him. What I didn’t know was that his WhatsApp had been hacked," the victim wrote to CiberCuba.
This week, a new solar panel scam was reported, following the same pattern of exploiting the energy needs of the population.
The Copextel Artemisa branch has warned about fraudulent calls and messages in which criminals use the company's name to demand advance payments in exchange for supposed solar panels.
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