A smartphone used to be just another tool for Sydney Chukwukelu, a pharmacist in Lagos, until August when it became the gateway to his ongoing nightmare. Before then, it was something he used as he saw fit but it now demands his constant attention because EaseMoni, an online loan company, selected him as one of the poor Nigerians who need their loans to survive. After all, he had taken loans from them in the past and repaid them early.
At first, Chukwukelu thought blocking EaseMoni’s numbers would end the harassment but hours after every blocking spree, like a self-replicating organism, EaseMoni would ring his phone from yet another unfamiliar number to offer him the same predatory loan. This cycle went on for days until his boss issued him a query for being distracted at work.
“Between August 13 and August 24, the calls became so consistent that my boss issued me a query for lacking concentration during Zoom meetings,” Chukwukelu told FIJ. “During meetings, they call me, and it slows down my data or disconnects the conference calls. I have begged them in several emails to stop but they told me that as a registered customer, they must update me on their new offers,” Chukwukelu told FIJ.
Chukwukelu’s email to EaseMoni
WHEN TOO MUCH IS TOO MUCH
The rise of online loan apps in Nigeria introduced a troubling trend of operators resorting to blackmail to recover loans. Many did not initially consider this a problem because “beggars can’t be choosers”. Some users who failed to read the terms and conditions of the loan apps they used to survive until the next payday dismissed this ‘small disgrace’ as an awful price to pay for quick loans. The casual acceptance of this insidious tactic encouraged many loan app operators to weaponise their users’ vulnerabilities against them.
By the time Nigerians realised the dangers of this unfortunate trend, the damage was done, and many were trapped in the quicksand of defamation and invasion of their privacy.
As FIJ investigations have revealed over the years, these companies aren’t only shaming users who fail to repay on time but also harassing those who repay early and even individuals who have no connection to their platforms. They invade their users’ privacy by accessing their contact lists, which violates their data rights according to Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. For instance, in 2022, CamelLoan sent a defamatory message to a woman’s contacts on WhatsApp, despite her immediate repayment of a loan they forced on her. The loan company falsely branded her as HIV-positive and accused her of sleeping with dogs.
The invasion of privacy is no longer limited to debt recovery. In recent times, many loan apps now exploit harvested data to target new people who have never taken a loan from them through text messages and repeated calls to push their offers. These practices have created an environment where Nigerians are constantly under digital siege with their phones weaponised against them by predatory lenders. One such Nigerian is Dave Ibe.
BY FIRE, BY FORCE
The only crime David Ibe, a Port Harcourt-based man, committed before he became the recipient of an awful number of calls every day since June was to update his OPay account. Since then, Okash and EaseMoni loan companies have made his life a living hell.
Ibe told FIJ that EaseMoni greeted him with at least 10 calls a day after he updated his OPay account, and it continued for a while until OKash joined them in barraging him with calls.
Both companies would typically tell him he had a loan offer or a seven-day interest-free coupon or that they had increased his loan limit despite never attempting to contact any of them for a loan.
“Out of curiosity, in June, I downloaded EaseMoni, inputted my phone number, and received a one-time password. To my shock, I discovered I already had an account with them, one I never created. It seemed that this triggered the incessant calls,” Ibe told FIJ.
One of Ibe’s email to OKash and EaseMoni
What Ibe did not seem to understand was why the calls never ceased. The calls would come in whether he was at work or home. They became so frequent that he blocked more than 30 numbers belonging to Okash and EaseMoni, but this did not prevent the calls from coming in.
A list of numbers belonging to both OKash and EaseMoni blocked by Ibe
A CRISIS OF CONSENT
When blocking the phone numbers failed, Ibe turned to the companies’ customer care representatives, pleading for relief. To intimidate them, he even claimed to be a police officer, but this tactic also proved ineffective.
“EaseMoni representatives told me they couldn’t close my account because I hadn’t taken a loan. So, I had to take one,” he explained.
The minimum loan amount was N32,000, repayable in two weeks with an interest of N4,000. Ibe repaid the loan the next day, hoping this would end the harassment. Instead, the calls intensified.
“One day, an OKash call representative said I should email the managing director of Blueridge Microfinance Bank, stating why I wanted my account to be closed on both Okash and EaseMoni. I did so, copying both the FCCPC and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), but to no avail,” said Ibe.
NUISANCE CALLS
Igor Onyekachi, a Lagos-based graphics designer, receives over 20 calls a month from numbers starting with 020, even at odd hours.
The relentless calls from OKash and EaseMoni have left him questioning whether taking a loan is a “glorious” achievement, given how persistently the loan companies ring his phone.
“I could be working on something important, and suddenly, my internet slows down because a call is coming in. When I check, it’s always one of these loan apps. It’s frustrating because I have no dealings with them,” Onyekachi told FIJ.
He tried to block the numbers to cope, but the calls kept coming. He noted how deceptive they could be, often mimicking automated calls only for a live person to start pitching loan offers if one listens long enough.
“Spectranet does something similar,” he added. “At first, you think the calls are normal, but they keep coming, disrupting your daily activities. It’s a real-time invasion of my privacy.”
WHAT THE LAW SAYS
Despite the aggressive “by fire, by force” tactics employed by many online loan agencies, the federal government’s stance on consent and privacy violations is clear.
The 2019 Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), issued by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), mandates that organisations must obtain consent before processing personal data and grants individuals the right to access and rectify their data. Similarly, Section 24 of the 2015 Cybercrimes Act criminalises cyberstalking, a practice many loan companies are guilty of through their incessant nuisance calls.
However, despite these legal safeguards, companies like OKash and EaseMoni continue to flagrantly violate customers’ privacy.
Awuese Lorchor, a legal practitioner, explaining how these loan apps gain access to people’s contacts, said that while this constitutes a breach of privacy rights, many apps include clauses permitting them to use customers’ contact information for marketing purposes, a practice she deemed contrary to data protection principles.
“The law allows data subjects to request the deletion of their data and stop its further processing. If you’re an old customer and they call you, you have the right to demand they cease processing your data, regardless of their policies. They are obligated to delete your data from their system,” Lorchor stated.
She described the marketing tactics of these loan companies as outright harassment, stating that they acquire contact lists unethically, sometimes purchasing them from the dark web.
“I’ve never used a loan app, yet a certain company started calling me as early as 7 am at a point. I researched them online, found their contact email, and wrote to them while copying the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC),” she told FIJ.
Lorchor emphasised that advertising should not involve harassing potential customers.
“They can use billboards or email marketing, where people can unsubscribe if they’re uninterested. Harassment is not the way forward,” she said.
A MATTER OF ETHICS
Deji Olowe, the Chief Executive Officer of Lendsqr, a software company for lenders, explained to FIJ that many loan apps exploit their customers’ contacts for personal gain, unlike apps like Truecaller, which may access contacts but do not misuse them as a matter of standard practice.
“These loan apps use predictive diallers to call people. When you block one number, another one calls you. At their centres, they have over 200 callers. Some even create loans in your name and use threats to coerce you. We’ve had people approach us for software to facilitate such unethical practices, but we don’t engage in that,” Olowe told FIJ.
Olowe’s claims are backed by evidence. A 2023 FIJ investigation revealed that employees of many loan companies were given strict targets to meet which pushed them to resort to unethical practices such as breaching people’s privacy with incessant calls and creating loans for unsuspecting customers to meet their quotas.
He attributed the unchecked operations of these loan apps to weak oversight at the state level. According to Olowe, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) does not directly regulate money lenders as it is the responsibility of the state governments.
“Unfortunately, many state governments lack the sophistication or focus to effectively manage this sector,” he noted.
RADIO SILENCE FROM GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
In October, FIJ visited Blueridge Microfinance Bank, the bank which houses OKash and EaseMoni, for its comments on the matter of privacy violation but they never responded.
Similarly, FIJ contacted the CBN, NITDA and the NCC on October 10 via email but they had not responded at the time of this publication. FIJ also contacted the FCCPC via email but the phone number it provided in their response for further enquiries did not connect.
On December 4, FIJ contacted the NDPC for its comments via email but it did not respond at press time.
FURTHER DATA VIOLATION PROBLEMS
In March, FIJ exposed XpressVerify.com, a private website which had unrestricted access to the National Identification Numbers (NINs) and personal details of all registered Nigerians. The site exploited the recovery of NINs and personal data from the Nigerian identification database for profit. Although the website was taken down following FIJ’s investigation, incidents like this raise concerns about the true security of Nigerians’ data.
In recent years, many Lagos residents have fallen victim to scammers posing as potential employers due to data breaches. Without applying for jobs, individuals have received unsolicited text messages and emails, claiming to invite them for interviews in the Ogba or Ikeja area of Nigeria’s capital. In September, FIJ reported the 44 confirmed addresses of these fake job locations, which scammers use to deceive people through text messages.
This report was produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop
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