YETUNDE Adewole lost her phone in June. She got a replacement weeks later, including a new SIM card and everything went back to normal.

She didn’t give a thought to the missing phone or the SIM card until rumours started flying around in July.

Yetunde owed money. An online loan fintech company was sending WhatsApp and text messages to everyone in Yetunde’s inner circle that she was a debtor and fraudster.

Her close friends, former schoolmates, and work colleagues received these messages, three or four times daily.

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How fintech loan sharks in Nigeria cyberbully, trap customer in debt

“I tried explaining to everyone on my contact list, whom I could get in touch with, that I didn’t take any loan from the online loan company and it has not been easy trying to clear my name for something I didn’t do.

“It was a really traumatic experience. My biggest regret was failing to block the line when my phone went missing,” she told The ICIR.

Yetunde had never taken a loan from an online loan app, but she failed to block her SIM card after her phone went missing.

If a missing phone fell into the hands of a scammer, a transaction could be done on the account of the phone owner without his or her knowledge.

All the scammer who picked up Yetunde’s SIM card needed to do was, download the online loan app, enter a fictitious financial detail, and let the algorithm generate a credit rating.

The fintech creditor usually asks for permission to access the contacts on the SIM card before the loan is approved, a process that takes barely an hour.

The scammer used Yetunde’s SIM card to take multiple loans from several online loan apps which included: NairaPlus, EasyCredit, TrueNaira, GoCash, CashLion and LCredit.

One month after, the online loan companies hounded Yetunde’s contacts, saying her payments for the loan was due.

She later reported the case to the law enforcement authorities and got a Police report and written affidavit.

The Police assured her of their intervention, promising that the messages by the fintech creditors to people on her contact list would cease.

Two weeks later, her friends still sent her screenshots of the threat messages by the fintech loan companies.

For thousands of Nigerians like Yetunde, whose identities were stolen by scammers, the online loan companies helped to publicly shame them without properly vetting their identities.

A data-sharing breach

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/nigerian-fintech-companies-shame-threaten-customers-for-late-payment-of-loans/