It started three months ago.
I’d just landed my first major international client, a design gig out of New York. The pay was in US Dollars. I felt like I had finally made it. The excitement was electric. I did the math in my head, converting the payment using the dollar to naira rate I’d seen online. I knew exactly what to expect.
Then the alert came.💰
The amount was… less. Not by a huge margin, but enough for me to notice. “Bank charges,”😮💨 I mumbled to myself, brushing it off.
But then it happened again. The next month, another payment. This time, a different amount was missing. Smaller, but still gone. No clear explanation. Just a quiet deduction, like a ghost had taken its share.
My excitement for payday started turning into anxiety. I’d stare at my phone, waiting for the alert, but with a knot in my stomach. Who, or what, was quietly eating my hard-earned money?
I went to my bank. I showed them the statements. They mumbled something about “intermediary bank fees” and “FX receiving charges.” The words were long, the explanation vague. It felt like they were describing a spirit from another realm.
I felt helpless. Every payment felt like a gamble. How much would the ghost take this time? It was my money, but it no longer felt like it was under my control. My international career, which was supposed to be a thing of pride, was becoming a source of constant, low-grade dread.
The Exorcism
Last week, I was venting to my friend Bola, another freelance writer.
“There’s a ghost in my bank account,” I said, half-joking. “Every time I get paid from my US client, it takes a cut. I can’t see it, I can’t track it, but it’s there.”
I explained everything: the missing funds, the confusing bank jargon, the stress of the whole international money transfer process because I was still a newbie to this whole thing.🤷🏽♀️
Bola listened patiently, a slow smile spreading across her face. When I was done, she didn’t offer sympathy.
She burst out laughing.
“David,” she said, still chuckling. “You’re fighting a ghost you summoned yourself.”😱
I was confused. “What are you talking about?”
“That ghost,” she said, “is called ‘The Forced Conversion Trap.’ You’re losing money to the crazy dollar to naira rollercoaster and hidden bank fees because you’re letting your dollars land in a Naira account. You don’t have a proper dollar account to receive it.”
The ghost wasn’t a phantom thief. It was the flawed, old-school financial system I was using. The horror story had a simple, almost funny explanation. The scariest thing was how much money I had lost by not knowing.
Bola explained that she’d faced the same issue until she started using a modern financial app that let her open her own proper USD and GBP accounts, right from Nigeria. She wasn’t just searching for “how to open a dollar account in Nigeria“; she had found a way. Her clients paid her in dollars, and the money stayed in dollars. No mysterious deductions, no ghostly fees.
The relief I felt was immediate. The ghost was busted.
My financial horror story had a surprisingly simple ending. It turns out, you don’t need an exorcist to get rid of financial ghosts; you just need the right tools.
