Published 12th May, 2022

By Mariam Hamzat

David Adeosun (not real name), another victim of Lupen NG, has narrated how the e-commerce automotive platform defrauded him of N500,000 after applying for a car loan in May.

Adeosun, a Lagos resident, said he had been in talks with Lupen to get a 2007 Toyota Camry which costs about N3 million for weeks. The organisation told him he was expected to pay 20 percent of the total cost of the car while they would provide the remaining 80 percent.

After securing the car, repayment was to be spread over a stipulated period with interest.

“They gave me an email which had my name and the company’s domain name, david @lupen.ng, and I was instructed to open a Paga account with it and fund the account,” Adeosun said.

According to the plan, Adeosun was to fund the account with N500,000, while Lupen NG was expected to make a balance payment for the vehicle. David said he made a screenshot of his page account balance with a representative of the organisation after funding the account on May 6. But he would later discover that the amount he deposited in the account had vanished.

“I was quite surprised because I was not carrying out any activity at the time. I logged in, only to see an empty account. The money in the account had been transferred to some Afrivoucher, and my email had been changed,” Adeosun said.

“I am still in shock at how my email was changed and a withdrawal carried out on the account without me receiving any OTP or login notification.

“I have been trying to reach Lupen Ng since the incident happened, but all my efforts have been futile. I have also not been able to access the organisation’s website since then.”

FIJ had reported how Opeyemi Adegun, a Lagos-based flight attendant, lost N750,000 to the company while trying to facilitate a car loan in the first week of May.

FIJ found that Lupen NG’s website is ‘down for maintenance’. Its Instagram page has also been deactivated, while its Facebook page only carries three posts with no engagement.

Further checks online revealed that the domain website was created in September 2021, and registered by one Harrison Lupen, from Lekki, Lagos.

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

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