In the past five years, the number of loan companies that have reared their heads in Nigeria has quadrupled. Because of the present state of the country, a good number of people don’t care about borrowing loans even if they will pay back with a lot of interest or find it hard to pay back ‘They Just Want To Have Something To Eat First’! In the same way, a lot of investors are creating loan companies around that which leads to a lot of bad or fake loan companies superseding good ones. Let me give you the top 40 list of Fake Loan Apps In Nigeria right now, how they carry out their operations is also very important in how to stop loan companies from accessing your contact and calling your relatives.
A loan shark is a loan company that has its operations online or offline, posing as a money lender. They initially display ads on people’s devices to get their attention and upon installation of these loan apps, they breach the user’s privacy by accessing their contacts and storing them in their database. With people’s contacts in their custody, they’d use every dubious means possible to try to get their money back from borrowers if they default for a day.
We’ve curated a long list of fake loan sharks and we strongly advise that borrowers/customers be wise enough to desist from transacting with them.
But, before giving you the list let me quickly tell you how they operate so that you can easily identify that they are fake.
How Fake Loan Apps In Nigeria Carry Out Their Operations
They initially start by mysteriously popping up on apps you use as adverts with promises of being able to lend you a huge amount of money. This, we would love to term a clickbait because you do not know what you’re getting into until you’ve installed the app.
Upon installation, you’ll find that the amount of money they had advertised to offer isn’t it. As if it’s some kind of computer game, they expect you to keep borrowing to climb up the ladder to the top.
The mistake most borrowers make is buying into the idea of actually moving from one level of this scam disguised as a money lender to another. As you apply for these loans, you’ll be met with an exorbitant interest rate. You’re given a timeframe with which you are to pay back and the whole motive is then unveiled when you default by a day.
Recently, a loan shark put up the obituary of a borrower who had defaulted in paying back what he owes. This drastic action isn’t without sending out threats to the customer and his/her contacts.
Quick research would further prove the sentiment of the majority: these supposed moneylenders are illegal ventures that aren’t recognized by law.
Loan apps, mostly referred to as loan sharks, started as a means of supporting one’s income, or so we thought until we began to notice some misdemeanours from their end.
Further research would go on to emphasize how much of an illegal venture these loan sharks are.
One of Google’s Policies states that: “Any app that offers personal loans with an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of 36% or higher are no longer expected to be available on the Play Store. To keep their apps in the Play Store, lenders must adjust their products and business models to meet Google’s requirements.”
We’d agree that a large amount of these loan apps popping their ads on our devices in a bid to lure people into their fraudulent web are going against this policy.
Let us easily give you the 12 ways you can identify fake loan apps very fast…
Ways to identify fake loan apps
These fake loan sharks have access to and compromise customers’ contacts and photos stored on their devices. They also use them to send threats and harass borrowers if they default.
- They have no social media presence, no contact number, no reasonable customer care service, or contact email with which you can reach them.
- Exerting pressure on customers to repay what they owe on or before the stipulated due date. This is accompanied by threats and embarrassing texts.
- Some loan apps, once you’ve once applied for a loan with them, would go as far as sending money to your account without you requesting it.
- Breaching their customers’ privacy and having access to their contact list. This, they’ll use to dish out embarrassing threats.
- Exorbitant interest rates.
- Nonstop harassment and threats to customers and customers’ contacts.
- Virtually harassing customers.
- Harsh and unethical means of loan recovery.
- Rude customer service reps.
- Loans are to be given out for 60 days, but these loan apps give out loans for 7 days.
- They refuse to tell you what their charge rates are.
- They use websites that are not secure. In some cases, they don’t have one at all and also do not have an on-site address.
Okay let’s quickly list the top 40+ list of fake loan apps in Nigeria including those that have a very high-interest rate suc*ing your bl#od in the name of loan companies
List of fake loan apps in Nigeria 2023
This list was curated using reviews left on the sites of these loan apps and interviews given by ill-treated customers.
- 9ja Cash
- 9Credit
- Aimloan
- Ajeloan
- AngelLoan
- BorrowNow
- CashFarm
- CashLion
- Cash Mall
- CashRain
- Cash Wallet
- CreditHall
- CycleCash
- Ease Cash
- EasyCredit
- EaseMoni
- EasyMoni
- FastMoney
- ForNaira
- GGMoney
- GetCash
- GoCash
- GotCash
- GotoCash
- iCoin
- iCredit
- KashKash
- LCredit
- LendCash
- LionCash
- Lucky Loan
- Mikoloan
- NairaPlus
- NCash
- NowCash
- OKash
- Oxloan
- Palmcash
- PalmCredit
- Rapid Naira
- Sokoloan
- Speedy Choice
- SuperCash
- Ucredit
- XCredit
Good numbers of them probably have called you saying that your relatives are owning them and that you should talk to them to payback… That is even the annoying part but wait… Let me show you how to stop them from doing that
How to stop loan apps from accessing your contacts
You could run an experiment with this fact. Try applying for a loan with a phone number or email address that does not have your contacts on them and you’d be refused that loan. This is because your contacts, to these loan sharks, are the collateral they need. Since we have given you List of fake loan apps in Nigeria you can use any of them listed above to run the experiment
What this means, in simple terms, is that none of these loan sharks would give in to your request for a loan if they can’t have access to your contacts.
If you duly observe, upon installation of these apps, they ask you to “allow” or “deny” them access to your contacts.
Desperately or unknowingly, you must have granted them access hence their ability to access your contacts.
Once this is done, we could say that they from then on share the information on your device with you unbeknownst to you. Your Bank Verification Number (BVN) and other profile information would automatically be downloaded into their database.
Whether or not you delete this information from your device, one thing remains: they now have you in their palms and would wield the power they now have however they deem fit.
Though that damage is already done, there is still a way to control the situation. All you have to do is:
- Go to your phone settings and scroll down to “app permissions”.
- Once there, go to those loan apps and deny them permission to further access your contacts, messages, and other information that could be uploaded on your device in the future.
You’ll no longer live in fear of being publicly embarrassed once you do this. They’d only have you to deal with.
We hope this article helps you with taking security measures.
