On September 27, Adewale Adefisayo, a Lagos-based marketing officer, had a financial emergency. When he could not get help from friends and family members, he resorted to securing a loan of N10,000 from Deloan, an online money lending company.

Adefisayo, a first time borrower on the loan outfit’s application, told FIJ that he was expected to pay a N4,500 interest on the money he borrowed, and that despite the October 3 deadline he had in paying back, Deloan would do the unthinkable by harassing and defaming him before repayment was due.

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Apart from the threat messages that were sent to him, the loan agency called his dad and his friends, alleging that he had absconded with the loan he took. One of the agents acting on behalf of the company also threatened that he would hurt the marketer “till he loses everything”.

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“This loan agency called Deloan went on calling my contacts that I am on the run and that I had absconded because I took a loan of N10,000,” Adefisayo said.

“The loan was to expire on October 3, 2022, only for me to wake up to messages of threat from them. I first received a message in the morning from their agent who said I must pay on or before noon.

“Around 10 in the morning, I immediately paid back N5,000 out of the N10,000 I borrowed from them. Note that the interest is N4,500. After this, I promised the agent that I would pay the balance before the day is over, which was still the same day the loan was meant to expire. But they started calling my contacts before noon.

“Before I knew what was happening, they had called my dad, who in turn called to tell me that some people were embarrassing him on the phone. They also called a friend of mine. This was around 11 am.

“I would have paid everything immediately, but we had not been paid our salary at work till now. But I was able to get some money from a friend and I paid them before 12 yet they insisted I had not paid.

“Shockingly, around past noon, the agent sent me a message full of threats. He said he won’t stop hurting me till I lose everything.

“I got furious and told them I had paid. I deleted their app immediately, and I went on Playstore with the aim of writing a negative review about their app, but I couldn’t find it.”

Adefisayo is not the only victim of harassment from Deloan.

In May 2022, Oyenike Oyelere lodged a complaint on the Consumer Complaints Court’s website about the threats she received from agents of the same loan outfit.

“I made payment on my repayment date and two of their agents kept threatening and harassing me that they’ll send messages to all my contacts about me being a fraudster whereas I didn’t breach our agreement. This is very annoying and unacceptable,” Oyelere said.

Earlier this year, FIJ reported that the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCC) raided some illegal financial institutions operating in Lagos State.

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Before this, the commission had, in September 2021, issued a statement announcing the beginning of an investigation into rights violations in the money lending industry.

Despite fines, sanctions and eventual shutdown of some of these firms, many of them have continued to devise new means of harassing their debtors. Some of them have also changed their names and logos.

FIJ made several phone calls to Deloan, but they were not answered. A text message sent to the company had also not been responded to at press time.