This guide is meant to help anybody buy and sell accounts in Kenya. The term account represents online job accounts that offer academic writing, transcription, captioning, and article writing, among other jobs.

One of the biggest challenges that account buyers experience is being defrauded by con men who claim to be sellers. By the way, if you’re entirely new to academic writing and would be a writer, check out this guide on how to start.

On the other hand, sellers also face the risk of being defrauded by mischievous buyers who fail to pay after account transfer.

Also, another challenge facing both buyers and sellers is having to meet up to facilitate a transaction, which in most cases might be time-consuming, expensive, and tiring.

Technology has, however, come a long way to mitigate these issues. Social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook, enable buyers and sellers to meet and interact online, which facilitates account transfer.

However, these platforms luck features that would protect both the buyers and sellers from mischievous activities.

For instance, when contacted by an account buyer on social media, you submit login details of the account for the buyer to check the account. Once they are satisfied with the account’s condition, they can either agree to pay or abandon the transaction.

If the buyer has mischievous tendencies, they can take ownership of the account by changing the login details and refuse to submit payment.

Another scenario will be when a con man advertises an account on Facebook and a buyer contacts him. The seller then provides logins to the buyer who checks it and feels satisfied and ready to pay for the account.

The seller then requests the buyer to send money directly, and once it’s done, he reclaims the account by changing the login details using the official email and blocks the buyer.

The buyer is left stranded and loses their money. In both cases, the contributing factor would be an incomplete transfer of account details due to ignorance.

To solve all these problems, a platform that provides an interaction feature between buyers and sellers and secures money by providing escrow services can ensure safe account buying and selling. This platform must also educate both buyers and sellers on the most delicate details for account transfer.

Meanwhile, it is crucial to understand that account companies are cracking down on buyers and sellers. Account exchange is considered illegal in the online job industry and strict measures have been put to prevent account transfer.

For instance, some account companies require you to provide ID verification whenever you wish to change login details.

Others take note of the quality of work produced during and after account details have been changed to look for quality drop, which is proof that the account owner has been changed.

When they notice anything suspicious, they suspend or even close down the account. For this reason, account buyers are at higher risk of losing accounts and not being able to reclaim their money after buying accounts.

So, before you decide to buy an account, be sure that you can match the quality of work that has been produced by the previous account owner.

You can do this by going through the previous orders of the account and identifying whether you can do similar jobs and match the quality of work produced before.

Now without further ado, let’s get into the central issue of buying and selling accounts. We shall tackle this one by one.

How to safely buy an account in Kenya.

Typically if you’re buying an account, the first thing you will do is to search for the account. Some of the best places to explore are academic writing groups on Facebook and telegram.

These groups contain thousands of members who are involved in online jobs such as transcription, captioning, and academic writing.

As a member of these groups, you have access to daily advertisements of accounts on sale by sellers. These posts can be found on your feed at any given moment, and you can contact the sellers through the contacts provided on the posts.

When contacting the sellers, some might require you to pay directly to the M-Pesa or bank account before providing you with all account details.

In case you meet such a person, it is highly advisable not to proceed with the transaction. Trustworthy sellers are known to provide avenues of payment that can be relied on.

For instance, they can ask you to meet in person for the transaction to be conducted or use escrow services. If you cannot meet in person, then you must insist on using escrow services.

What is escrow?

Escrow is a form of payment where an intermediary is used to provide security for money to facilitate a transaction between a buyer and the seller.

When a buyer uses escrow services, they pay directly to the escrow agent who keeps the money safe and only pays the seller once the buyer has confirmed that the service or product purchased has been delivered successfully.

Therefore, the seller is obligated to provide the product, in this case, the account to the buyer before they can receive the money.

In case he does not deliver, the buyer can raise a complaint on the transaction and have their money refunded fully.

If you fail to use escrow services and lose money to a con, you will have only yourself to blame. So the only time you can forfeit escrow services is when you can meet with the buyer and pay directly as soon as the account has been transferred to you.

Several platforms in Kenya provide escrow services not only for account buying and selling but also for other products. They include

• EscrowKenya
• JointPesa
• SafeEscrow.

These platforms offer an easy-to-use interface for opening trade as a buyer.

How to sell an account in Kenya safely

Account selling has become a significant business today in Kenya. Many university graduates who failed to secure employment after completing school tend to join the online jobs industry.

They start by opening accounts or working under account owners and learn through experience how to manage accounts.

Soon enough, they also learn how to open accounts, which when sold, is more lucrative than doing online jobs.

They, therefore, shift into account selling and act as brokers or account openers. Yet job accounts only represent a small percentage of the types of accounts being sold online in Kenya.

Others include social media accounts such as Instagram, TikTok and Telegram groups, game accounts, and even bank accounts. This industry has grown tremendously over the past decade, and it’s still on the rise.

The challenge, however, is finding a great platform to advertise accounts for sale. While Facebook and other social media platforms can provide an excellent avenue to meet buyers of accounts, due to the many cases of account cons reported on these platforms, buyers tend to avoid dealing with the sellers.

Also, because these platforms do not provide a great filtering system, buyers cannot find exactly what they are looking for unless they scroll through the feed, which is time-consuming.

Escrow Kenya charges 3%, while other platforms charge between 2% and 2.5%.

Conclusion

Buying an account should not be daunting. Neither should selling accounts be painstaking. Using technology, you can make it efficient to do and do it safely.

While social media platforms can be very instrumental for exchanging accounts, it is also necessary to ensure that there is trust in account exchange.

Also, considering that account companies are working hard to prevent account exchanges as they try to maintain the quality of work produced and lockout unqualified writers and freelancers, it is crucial to understand the risks involved in purchasing accounts at any time.

The most significant risk to a buyer is having your account terminated as soon as you purchase it because you failed to provide work of the same quality as the previous account owner.

Also, having the account details changed by a con account seller will mean you lose both your money and the account.

These are some of things you need to consider before proceeding with any account purchase.

• Always use escrow services unless you can meet with the seller
• When meeting with the seller, it is highly advisable to do it with a friend who ensures your safety.
• Never transact with a seller that insists on direct payment without providing a trustworthy avenue of payment 
• Keep a record of the WhatsApp Messages with the seller just in case an issue arises.
• Always change all the account details, which include login password, official email, phone number used for password recovery, and payment getaways. If you fail to secure these details, you can lose your account to a con.

For the seller, being defrauded by a buyer might be the most significant risk, but it solely depends on the actions you take during the exchange of accounts.

• In case you cannot meet with the buyer in person, it is highly advisable to use escrow services and at the same time keep a record of the conversations you have with a buyer. These chat screenshots will enable you to get paid when a mischievous buyer raising a dispute even after getting full ownership of the account you have just sold it to them.
• Considering that some accounts have strict measures such as country blocking to prevent writers from various regions, you ought to inform the account buyer to use a VPN that provides an IP address in the preferred location. This ensures the account’s safety even after transfer, which is good for business for both of you.