Embattled gold dealership firm Menzgold Ghana Limited has appointed Payboy Company Limited as a third party to negotiate debt settlement with its numerous aggrieved clients.

In a statement, Menzgold said: “Following an advice given and subsequently reiterated in a press release issued on the 18th of December 2019 with reference number KBA 3015/19 by our counsel, we’re happy to introduce PAYBOY COMPANY LIMITED, a digital payments marketing and promotions company, headquartered at No. 34 Nii Ako Nortei Street, Blohum Road, Dzorwulu, Accra, as the appointed third party entity with the capacity to negotiate ‘Debt Settlement Agreements’ and to facilitate payments of same, in our committed resolve to ensure the eventual full debts settlements by Menzgold within the shortest possible time”.

“Counting on your kind cooperation as we strive to achieve this noble debt settlement objective,” the statement added.

Meanwhile, on 22 April 2020, the Coalition of Aggrieved Customers of Menzgold (CACM) described Payboy Company Limited, an alleged offshoot of the defunct gold-trading company, as a Ponzi scheme and cautioned its members against doing business with the firm.

It followed calls to customers by Payboy Company to pay an amount of money in order to retrieve their locked-up funds from the defunct gold-trading company.

In a statement issued by the Coalition signed by the leadership of CACM on Wednesday, 22 April 2020, the group advised its members “to stay away from Payboy Company Limited.”

According to the Coalition, information reaching them indicates that: “About 319 customers have fallen prey to the latest scandal by Payboy, which extorts 9 percent to 20 percent of their locked-up investment with the pretext that they can work magic to enable them to get their locked-up investment paid. Our investigation shows that the activities of Payboy, an offshoot of Menzgold CEO is nothing but a Ponzi scheme calculated to outwit unsuspecting customers of Menzgold. Many of the customers of Menzgold have received invites, adverts and messages asking them to partake in this scheme which we find quite nauseating.”

The statement continued that the promoters of “this latest scam promise 5 percent payment of one’s locked-up funds bi-monthly for the next 18 months. After more than three hours’ interrogation between the leadership of CACM and one Eric Mensah, who claims to be an agent of Payboy, the latter revealed that NAM1 endorses Payboy’s activity and that people who pay the 9 percent are finally paid by Menzgold, whose owner is Nana Appiah Mensah.

Customers will recall that in November and December 2018, MenzGold, through the CEO, asked them to pay a 5% migration fee which never saw the light of day and all those monies are locked-up.”

The Coalition further continued that it would like to “know whether the Bank of Ghana or Securities and Exchange Commission has licensed Payboy to take money from the public?”

It added that the leadership of the CACM finds “this latest arrangement quite repugnant since Menzgold claims it cannot pay customers. However, the latest arrangements where Payboy takes 9 percent to 20 percent from customers automatically empowers Menzgold to be able to start paying 5 percent of customers’ money. This is, in our view, Ponzi in its newest form and customers who patronise such scheme will lose.”