How Loan Apps In Nigeria Turns Your Phone Contacts Into Collateral [TRUTH BEHIND] June 2022

This article will show you How Loan Apps In Nigeria Turns Your Phone Contacts Into Collateral. In order to collect loans, Nigeria’s digital e-commerce platforms that offer short-term loans have used unethical and unlawful methods, which we have decided to share with you today.

Various online lending companies and loan apps emerged in the post-pandemic era in Nigeria and other nations across the world. One of the most lauded features of these loan apps and online lending platforms is that they operate and provide credit to customers without the need for collateral, documents, or physicality, as conventional banks frequently require.

Many Nigerians have flocked to these digital banking services that offer rapid and instant cash as their go-to option if they have a financial emergency as a result of this new capability. The very fact that you could contact a somewhat well-known or entirely unknown internet platform and acquire cash in a matter of hours, if not minutes, made loan usage a breeze. Many Nigerians have abandoned traditional banks, along with all of their bureaucracies, collateral, and documents.

Your ability to get immediate credit with only a few clicks on a loan app or a digital lending platform, and especially without collateral or any kind of verification, has made these lending apps and online banks a popular choice among many people. It’s not only thrilling but also revolutionary, to know that you may get fast cash of N50,000 or N100,000 in the corner of your room with just a few taps on your cellphone, without having to go to a bank or send any physical mail.

How Loan Apps In Nigeria Turns Your Phone Contacts Into Collateral In the Event Of Repayment Default By Borrowers

Is It Possible to Stop Loan Apps From Accessing Your Phone Contacts After You Have Borrowed Money From Them?

The reality would be that your contacts, which were “safely saved on your mobile phone” when you downloaded the loan app and secured the loan using the app platform, are “your collateral and guarantee for loan payback.” If you wish to apply for a loan but don’t have any contacts on your phone, rest certain that no lending app in Nigeria will accept your application.

In other words, you can’t prevent any lending app in Nigeria, or anywhere else for that matter, from accessing your phone contacts after you’ve applied, confirmed, and borrowed money from them. Your phone contacts will be saved in the loan app’s external database against your name, BVN, and other profile details right away, even if you subsequently delete or uninstall the loan app. You’re at their mercy.

However, you may still prevent them from accessing your phone contacts and other information that you have given them permission to access. Simply scroll down to app permission and disable lending apps’ access to your contacts, sms, photo gallery, and storages on your phone. They won’t be able to contact your contacts or upload your photos any longer. They’d only have your phone number and would only have to deal with you.

It may be a business associate, a costumer base, or even friends and family, loved ones, and group members, including hundreds of thousands of others, who a person/customer would not want to be humiliated or threatened in front of (due to loan default), but this was the ultimate card the loan apps in Nigeria counted on to get repaid if you defaulted. Their weapons include humiliation, slander, threats, and public shaming, which the lending apps use against you and all of your valuable contacts, including family members, in order to get their debt repaid.

If you are unsure whether or not you will be able to repay a loan when it is due, please do not collect the loan.

The only way to avoid or stop loan apps from accessing your phone contacts is to not download their applications and not collect their loan at all. When you hit loan authorized on your phone, you already logged in and “approved your contacts for their database.”

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Borrowers In Nigeria Describe The Humiliating Experience Of Loan Apps Accessing Their Phone Contact List After They Defaulted.

“It hasn’t been a pleasant process,” Jane, who had defaulted on a loan, said. To soothe herself after the lender called her phone connections, she responded in a mix of Pidgin and English, “Who no dey borrow?” Borrowing is a common occurrence in Nigeria. But instead of reaching out to my contacts, they should have concentrated on me paying their money.” While she was humiliated beyond her wildest dreams, the psychological impact was a sense of having nothing left to lose.

Game of Thrones viewers will recall the shout “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as Cersei, the Queen Mother, was paraded through the fictitious town of King’s Landing as atonement for her “sins.” Hundreds or thousands of numbers on a person’s phone might be contacted in the same way, all in an attempt to embarrass a borrower into loan payback.

Chidi, who borrowed N10,000 apiece from three such applications in mid-2021 for a total of N30,000 ($72), but defaulted after the 2-week duration, claimed he was broke at the time and under pressure to settle some items. This resulted in a deluge of messages and phone calls, initially threatening him with retaliation, then to all of his phone contacts. When questioned, he recognized iCoin as one of the apps but couldn’t recall the others.

“Now that Christmas is over, if you know you borrowed money from any digital lending app, please go and pay it back. Because of you, I don’t want to receive any unnecessary communications. “Walahi, I’m going to carry them to your house,” Collins Nnabuife joked on his Facebook page, a depiction of the current reality many people face. Not only for individuals who have borrowed but also for their phone contacts, who have received threatening texts despite never having been utilized as guarantors for the loan.

How Loan Apps In Nigeria Are Flouting Google Policy On Finance Apps And Nigeria’s Local Lending Laws

Although the majority of the apps indicate that the shortest loan term is 91 days, in order to ‘pass’ the Google Playstore criteria for the apps to be hosted, all of the apps, according to ‘victims,’ provide loans as short as seven days.

“We don’t allow apps that promote personal loans that require full repayment in 60 days or less from the moment the loan is issued,” Google says on a website about Financial Services app terms. It also warns, “We don’t accept apps that expose users to fraudulent or hazardous financial products and services.”

Christmas is past; if you know you borrowed money via any loan app, please pay it back. Because of you, I don’t want to receive any unnecessary communications.

The minimum and maximum repayment periods, the maximum annual percentage rate, and other details are all required by digital lending apps, which most either misrepresent or omit. By making loans of only seven days, for example, these lenders are clearly violating a crucial Google rule that no tenor should be less than 60 days.

When asked about Google’s reaction to conducts of loan apps housed on the Playstore platform, a Google spokeswoman was reported as noting that the business has very strong regulations that regulate apps that are authorized on the Playstore platform. “When we discover infractions, we take swift action, which may include removing the app from our platform.” Violations can be reported by going to the Google Play store’s menu and tapping the ‘Flag as inappropriate’ link. “When we get reports, we investigate and take decisive action,” Google stated.

Apart from violating Google Play’s conditions, the digital lending applications have also been accused of breaking Nigeria’s data privacy and cyber security laws.

Soko Loan, one of the loan applications, was fined N10 million by the NITDA after users complained that it violated their privacy and defamed them by reaching out to their phone connections.

“The above action is being taken upon getting a series of complaints against the company for unauthorised disclosures, failure to protect customers’ personal information, defamatory of personality, and inability to undertake due diligence as entrenched in the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation,” NITDA stated in August 2021. The punishment imposed against Soko Loan has not discouraged other loan apps from engaging in similar tactics months later.

Following The FCCPC’s Ban, Loan Sharks And Illegal Lending Platforms In Nigeria Continue To Terrorize, Threaten, And Defame Nigerians.

And after the FCCPC apparently halted many defaulting loan sharks’ operations and froze the accounts of 30 loan apps in Nigeria, as we reported on March 30th, and further reported frozed bank accounts belonging to another 50 loan apps in Nigeria, the sharks in this lending platform continue to publicly shame their customers and borrowers. The FCCPC and other regulatory agencies should expose these nefarious lending platforms and penalize them for data privacy violations and defamation of Nigerians.

Frequently Asked Questions: How You Can Stop Loan Apps In Nigeria From Accessing Your Phone Contacts?

We’ve attempted to respond to a few frequently asked issues about how to prevent loan apps from accessing your phone contacts. Why are the responses not direct? Because they are situational and based on your previous activities.

1. How do I get loan apps to stop calling my contacts?

To prevent loan apps from accessing or phoning your phone contacts and family members, take the following steps:
You should not install any lending apps on your phone.
If you’ve already downloaded a loan app, don’t accept or collect any loans through it.

2. How do loan apps get access your contacts?

If you’ve already uninstalled a loan app from your phone, it won’t be able to access your contact list. If you ever received a loan from them, though, it’s likely that your contacts were downloaded and stored in the app’s database outside of your phone.

3. Can a loan app block my BVN?

A loan app can’t ‘BLOCK’ your BVN; all it can do is block you from taking out additional loans on their platform or borrowing from other loan apps.

4. What happens if online loan is not paid in Nigeria?

Your name will be banned and reported to regulatory organizations such as the CBN and the Credit Bureau, in addition to your collateral being seized. You won’t be able to take out any more debts, and you won’t be able to take on most government obligations. Your credit score will suffer as well.

5. When you delete a loan app do they still have access to your contacts?

Is it possible for a loan app to access my contacts even if it is uninstalled? If you’ve already uninstalled a loan app from your phone, it won’t be able to access your contact list. If you ever received a loan from them, though, it’s likely that your contacts were downloaded and stored in the app’s database outside of your phone.

6. How do I remove my information from online lending app?

Scroll down to the personal information entry section after tapping Identity Monitoring. Select each category of information to learn more (personal information, financial information, etc) At the top right of the screen, tap edit. Next to each item of information you want to remove from the app, tap the delete button.

7. Is it possible to prevent Nigerian loan apps from accessing your phone contacts?

This question has a simple answer: NO! If you have previously downloaded the lending app and obtained a loan through the platform.

Because your phone contact is already safely kept in the app’s external database, you can no longer prevent the loan app from accessing it.

Even if you later uninstall the program, it remains on their device. To avoid additional harrassment, threat, or blackmail, you should stop collecting their loan and repay any outstanding loans.

8. How do I obtain loan applications? To cease calling my contacts in Nigeria? How can you prevent loan apps from accessing your contacts on your phone?

To prevent loan apps from accessing or phoning your phone contacts and family members, take the following steps:

• You should not install any lending apps on your phone.
• If you’ve already downloaded a loan app, don’t accept or collect any loans through it.
• If you have previously taken out a loan from the platform, delete and uninstall the app from your phone right away, and do not reinstall or take out another loan from the platform.
• Only choose reputed lending apps that will not send embarrassing or defamatory messages to your contacts, even if they have access to your phone contacts.

9. Can a loan app access my contacts if uninstalled?

If you’ve already uninstalled a loan app from your phone, it won’t be able to access your contact list. If you ever received a loan from them, though, it’s likely that your contacts were downloaded and stored in the app’s database outside of your phone. To prevent loan apps from accessing your phone contacts again, remove the app safely and stop using it.

10. Can loan apps come to my house?

A loan application will not be delivered to your home. If you have already downloaded their app and received their loan, they have access to your contact list, databases, BVN, and profile information, and they can report you to the credit bureau and blacklist your name against your BVN if you default on your loan. To prevent loan apps from accessing your phone contacts again, remove the app safely and stop using it.

11. How do I stop messages from loan apps?

Safely remove the app and stop patronizing them to stop communications from digital lenders or lending apps from accessing your phone contacts again. Also, if you have any outstanding loans, pay them off and let the app know so that your records may be updated.

12. How to stop a loan app from accessing your contact?

• You should not install any lending apps on your phone.
• If you’ve already downloaded a loan app, don’t accept or collect any loans through it.
• If you’ve already taken out a loan through the platform, pay off any outstanding balances immediately, delete and uninstall the app from your phone, and don’t reinstall or take out another loan from the credit platform.
• Only choose reputed lending apps that will not send embarrassing or defamatory messages to your contacts, even if they have access to your phone contacts.

13. Can Denying Loan Apps Permission Stop Them From Calling or Messaging Your Contacts?

YES. You automatically block a lending app from accessing, calling, or messaging your contacts if you deny them access to your contact list. Your loan will not be accepted and you will not receive any financing through the loan app if you deny any lending platform permission to access your contact information. As a result, you must choose which is more important to you.

14. How Do I Prevent Fake Loan Apps Like Sokoloan, LCredit and others From Calling Or Messaging My Contacts?

Do not download loan apps on your phone to prevent them from accessing your phone contacts in general, or to prevent fraud platforms like Sokoloan or LCredit from texting your contacts specifically. Don’t accept or repay any debt from them. Allowing them access to your contacts on your phone is not a good idea. That basically means you won’t be able to recover their debts.

15. Do You Need Quick Or Emergency Loan From Reputable Loan Apps In Nigeria?

Are you looking for a quick loan or an emergency cash loan in Nigeria? You can apply using any of Nigeria’s leading lending applications and receive funding in as little as 3 hours, a few hours later, or within 24 hours. With any of our renowned loan applications in Nigeria, there are no hidden fees, no documents required, and no collateral is required. Taka loan is one of these reliable emergency loan services.

Reputable And Reliable Instant Loan Apps In Nigeria To Borrow From

You can apply for quick cash loans from other platforms besides ALAT By Wema if you require a recognized and reliable rapid loan app in Nigeria. If you operate a business, however, you can apply for a larger loan amount through the Lendigo website. The funds might be utilized to help your company grow and flourish.

Check out Low Interest Loan Apps in Nigeria and the Top 5 Best Loan Apps In Nigeria With Low Interest.

That has been How Loan Apps In Nigeria Turns Your Phone Contacts Into Collateral. If this article has been of help to you, why not share it with friends on social media through any of the sharing buttons below?

LMA Team.