I Run an Ajo for 12 Women in USDT. Two Swore They Paid, One Paid Twice, and Nobody Would Back Down

Dek: Nkechi* (39) is a nurse in Leeds who started an ajo with 11 other Nigerian women across the UK, US and Canada. Each woman puts in $500 a month, and the pot goes to a different member every month. In October, the group chat nearly tore itself apart over a single payment. She talks about the screenshots, the member who paid twice, and the friend who fixed it with one question.

Names have been changed. Nkechi heard about HostFi from a friend.

Why did you start an ajo abroad?

It started with homesickness, to be honest. My mum ran an ajo in her market in Enugu for over twenty years, and I grew up watching her collect money from traders every Saturday and write names in a school exercise book. Nobody signed anything, and nobody ever ran away with the money. When I moved to the UK in 2016, I missed that kind of trust. Everything here is contracts and direct debits.

So at the start of this year, I told a few women from my church and my old nursing school group that we should do it. Twelve of us said yes. We are spread across Leeds, Houston, Toronto, Dublin and Atlanta. The deal is that each person puts in $500 every month for 12 months, and one person collects the whole $6,000 each month. We drew lots to decide the order. I picked the last month myself, because I'm the organiser and I didn't want anyone saying I took the money first.

Why dollars?

Because we all earn in different currencies. I earn pounds, the Toronto girls earn CAD, and Dublin is euros. In our first attempt, I tried collecting in pounds into my bank account, and the women in America could not send it easily. Then the exchange rate arguments began. “Nkechi, the pound was 1.27 when I sent it.” I was doing sums in my head every month.

Stablecoins solved that. Everybody buys USDT with whatever currency they have, on whatever app they like, and sends 500 to the group wallet. It was working well from June to September. I felt very proud of myself. A few of the women even said it reminded them of home.

So what went wrong?

Everybody was paying into the same wallet address, which I posted in the group description. Payment was due on the 1st of every month. On the 1st of October, it was Tosan's turn to collect. Tosan is building a house in Warri, and she had told the whole group the contractor was waiting for her money to start the roofing. So I wanted to pay her out the same day.

By the evening of the 2nd, my wallet showed 12 deposits of exactly 500 USDT. Twelve women, twelve deposits, so on paper it was complete. I was ready to send her the $6,000. Then Chinwe messaged me privately and said, “Nkechi, I think I sent mine twice.”

What did you do?

My heart dropped, because that meant one person was missing. I looked at the wallet again and, you know what a crypto deposit shows? An amount, a time, and a long string of letters and numbers for the sender. No names. Twelve deposits of 500 with twelve strangers' addresses.

So I did what any organiser would do: I went to the group chat and asked everyone to post a screenshot of their payment. And that was the beginning of the wahala.

Eight women posted theirs with no problem. Chinwe confirmed her two. Then Folake posted a screenshot, and Yetunde posted a screenshot, both saying “paid.” But if Chinwe had paid twice and eight others were clear, then only one deposit was left for both Folake and Yetunde. One of them had not paid.

Ah. How did the two of them take it?

Omo, it was not funny. Folake said she had never in her life been accused of not paying. Yetunde said she had sent hers at 2:20 pm on the 1st and was not going to send it again because somebody's maths was confusing. Both of them were very polite at first, with “dear” and “my sister” and all that. After about 40 messages, it was no longer polite. Somebody said, “I'm a woman of integrity.” Somebody else said, “I don't have to prove anything.” Another member, who wasn't even involved, left the group and came back an hour later.

Tosan was there reading all of it, and she was the one waiting for $6,000. She wrote one message that said, “Please, I just want to know when my money is coming.” That one actually hurt.

I didn't sleep that night. I was sitting on my bed with my laptop, thinking, if I make the wrong call, I lose two friends and maybe the entire ajo.

How did you find out who had not paid?

I asked each of them for the transaction ID from their exchange, which is like a receipt number, and I matched them on the blockchain. It took me two nights because I'm not a tech person, and half the women didn't know where to find theirs. In the end, it was a small thing. Folake had posted a screenshot from September. She had taken it to show me last month, never deleted it, and sent that one in the heat of the argument without checking the date. When I pointed it out, she went very quiet for about four hours. Then she said, “Oh. I'm so sorry, I thought it was the new one.” She paid that same evening.

Tosan finally got her $6,000 on the 5th, four days late. She was gracious about it, but she told me the contractor had already moved to another site and she'd have to wait for him. I felt quite terrible about that.

Chinwe's extra $500 is sitting in my wallet as credit for November. She's the only one who came out of the whole thing looking like a saint.

How did you hear about HostFi?

My friend Ifeoma in Dallas. She isn't in the ajo. I called her on the 6th just to rant, and I was going on and on about how I was ready to dissolve the whole thing. She listened, and then said, “Why is everybody paying into the same address?” I said because that's the group wallet. She said, “Nkechi, they just added subaddresses on HostFi. You can create one address for each person, and it all goes into the same wallet.”

I had to ask her to repeat it. A different address for each woman, but one wallet? She sent me a screen recording, and I opened an account that night.

What did you do on the app?

It was easier than I expected. You tap Receive, choose USDT, and pick the network. Your main address shows with a tag that says Main. Then there's a button at the bottom: Create Sub Address. You type a name; I typed “Folake,” tap Create Address, and that's it. I did it 12 times, one for each woman, including myself, and typed every name by hand. I sent each woman her own address on WhatsApp, privately, with a message that said, “From November, please pay only to this one.”

Everything still lands in one wallet, so nothing about the pot changed. But now when money arrives, the app shows which address received it. If the November deposit comes through “Yetunde,” it's Yetunde who paid. I won't be matching long strings to screenshots at 2 am anymore.

Did the women accept the change?

Eleven of them said yes immediately. One asked if it was safe, so I explained that it's the same money in the same wallet, only with separate addresses. I also told them they should send on the same network I chose, because sending on the wrong one can cost you your money. I've written the network in the group description in capital letters.

Has the group recovered?

Mostly. Folake sent me a long message of apology on Sunday, and Yetunde has forgiven everybody, I think. We have not had our November payment yet, so I can't tell you how it will go. But I'm not worried about it anymore. The ajo has seven months left, and I'd like to finish it with all twelve of us.

My mum called me last week and asked how the ajo was going. I told her what happened. She laughed for about a minute and said, “Nkechi, this is why we write names in the book.”

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

9. I'm earning well, and my savings are on track. I also have a pot that gives eleven other women and me a lump sum each month, which is something I'm proud of. I just want to get through the rest of the year without another group chat war.

HostFi is available on the App Store and Google Play. Buy, swap, and hold digital assets with zero fees on in-app conversions.