Ms Fatoki Caroline (not her real name) does not remember when she ever put down her KYC details for the marketing agents of the Alend loan App. But she got two messages from them in August, both of which were about the call for her to get a loan.
“How did they get my contact?” Ms Caroline wondered but got no answers. PIJAlance would later discover that Caroline was not alone. Such a question has always been the dominant query Nigerian users asked since last year on Facebook. Alend, the loan app, also calls Nigerians too for an unsolicited loan application.
The loan app wears every garment of secrecy and is somewhat malicious. It has been banned from the Google Play store and its Facebook page has recently been removed. The app is a possible affiliation of formerly banned loan apps in Nigeria or a renamed version of it. This could be one of the ways it gets Nigerian users’ contacts to send them unsolicited messages. “This is called spamming,” Caroline told PIJAlance.
Spamming is a serious crime in Nigeria. It’s a breach of fundamental human right to privacy as entrenched in section 37 of the 1999 Nigeria Constitution (amended). Spamming is sending unsolicited messages or making unsolicited calls to any individuals. The messages could be through emails or SMS. To show the gravity of its implication, in 2022, a High Court in Ogun State fined an unnamed bank N500,000 damages for spam messages to a customer, according to a report on TheCable Nigeria.
In July 2024, the Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) also fined WhatsApp and its parent company, Meta Platforms, $220 million for exploiting users’ data. This, according to the Commission, contravenes the FCCPA and the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR).
Despite this, for the Alend Loan App, Nigerian Citizens don’t have any right to privacy. It often calls with different Interactive Voice Response (IVR) lines and sends bulk spam messages, bearing a sender’s inscription as “AlendMKT.”
As far back as July 2024, the Alend Loan App started spamming Nigerians with an advert to collect loans both through calls and SMS. While Alend is yet to have publicly available operations that lure users into predatory lending, a look into its deeper operation proved suspiciously clandestine.
For example, Alend’s website, “alend.ng”, is registered by an organization called “Example Inc.” under the pseudonym, Arrow Wei, as the registrant. Both Example Inc and Arrow Wei, when checked, are non-existent. Arrow Wei is also a name only associated with a Taiwanese 34-year-old singer.
Whois, a website that looks up domains, noted that the domain name “Alend.ng” was registered with the address name: “No. 12, Ayoola Cooker Street, GRA, 100271, Lagos, yet with an Indian number: +9152843322. When checked, the number is also invalid, as it contains only 10 digits (plus the country code). This contradicts India’s official 12 digits (plus the country code).
Alend has a similar link to other loan apps. For example, there are over 15 different Facebook accounts, which are promoting loan apps in Nigeria with good reviews. Some of them have also offered reviews for Alend.ng on Facebook. It’s unknown if the reviews are given under fake identities, but what the Facebook accounts have in common is that they post the same things for different loan apps.
PIJAlance had reported that UltraNaira was one of the loan apps in Nigeria that engaged in predatory lending.
While Google Play Store has undermined the prevalence of Alend.ng, preventing users from being allegedly scammed or being preyed on, Meta, through Facebook, is allowing Alend to run ads, opening users to potential digital harm.
Enoch Oyedibu
Brazen Investigative Journalist with a deep interest for tracking the grassroots impacts of government procurement.