Confusion. That was the first emotion on the face of estate surveyor and valuer Oha Bade’s* younger sister when Easybuy sent her a N234,000 loan she did not ask for on August 20.

Apart from providing loans to customers, Easybuy also allows people to pay for gadgets and home appliances in instalments.

Before the whole incident happened, Bade’s sister had only purchased a smartphone from Easybuy. She never requested a loan from them.

“She got a phone from them in February 2024 and made the last payment in April or May,” Bade, who is based in Ibadan, told EQ.

When his sister informed him that she received an alert of a loan she didn’t request from Easybuy that August, he told her to return it to the sender’s account immediately.

“But she couldn’t trace the account or their contact details,” he said.

The disbursed loan.

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Bade began an online search until he found what he thought was an Easybuy contact and repaid the loan the following day. He said that he did this to avoid any form of embarrassment from loan sharks.

However, their good intention to promptly return the N234,000 loan turned out to be a huge mistake because they sent it to a fraudster instead of the official Easybuy account.

“The issue now is that they (Easybuy) are asking for repayment after the whole amount of the unrequested loan has been paid.”

EQ understands that Bade had chatted with the fraudster whose WhatsApp contact (08032583674) was available on this Facebook page, named Easy Buy, with over 2,000 followers.

Checks by EQ also showed that the page used to have a presence on Instagram, but the link was not functional and the page could not be found.

The Facebook page.

Google search results of the page.

Screenshot of the unavailable Instagram page.

The business address of the page is Number 25, Noble Plaza, Oyaifo Bus Stop, Isalu, Badagry, Lagos State. EQ also found that this company deals in electronics. While it also allows customers to pay in instalments like the original Easybuy platform, nowhere on its page does it state that it offers loans.

Bade sent the first message at 10:53 pm on August 20 but got no response until the next day.

When he got a response the following morning, he wrote: “Please the issue I have is about loan. A loan was mistakenly sent to our account yesterday and we want to make a return immediately. Kindly give us advice on how to go about it.”

The person on the other end of the conversation responded with “Ok” and the WhatsApp conversation progressed. Bade believed that he was chatting with an agent of the loan-giving Easybuy platform.

When the Easy Buy operator provided the Moniepoint account number, 6433837805 with the name Lady F Enterprise 01, Bade immediately drew attention to the fact that it was different from the details of the sender who disbursed the loan in the first place. Chats between the duo can be found here.

As seen in the credit alert for the disbursed loan, the first three numbers of the sender’s account details are 101 while the last three digits are 705. In response to the discrepancies in both account numbers, the Easy Buy operator claimed it was for the company’s security.

When Bade requested the full account details so he could confirm the link between the two accounts, the fake agent responded in terrible written English: “Even if I may understand anything, it’s for the company security so if you ready you make your payment if not keep the loan as the interest increases. One’s you make your payment and send your receipt I confirm it here and your debt will cleared immediately with no wastage of Time.”

Bade sent the money to that account number, with the hope that the outstanding loan on the Easybuy app would be cleared off immediately.

The loan was not cleared as expected. When Bade contacted the Easy Buy agent for an update, the person claimed “it was freezing because of network issues”.

The Easy Buy operator later claimed that the outstanding loan would still reflect on Bade’s sister’s device until the day stipulated for repayment when it would go off. But this was just another lie he told Bade.

Then in September, Bade’s sister was both shocked and confused when she got a message to remind her of the loan repayment. She also got another notice of repayment on September 20 and a threatening letter saying she would be subjected to embarrassing actions on behalf of Easybuy.

EQ learnt that Easybuy was expecting N352,404.24 from Bade’s sister.

The repayment schedule.

EQ contacted Easy Buy, the electronics company that dubiously received the refund from Bade, on Tuesday and the handler revealed that they were not linked to NewEdge. Easybuy is the Newedge Finance Limited product, not Easy Buy.

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EQ subsequently sent a follow-up message along with proof of the N234,000 sent to the Moniepoint account details provided to Bade via the same number, but there was no response.

When EQ called the official phone number belonging to Easybuy, the female customer representative who responded said they had no links to the account number that received the money on August 21.

She, however, asked EQ to advise the customer to contact them directly through the live chat feature on the app. “Once she logs in to the application, she should send proof of her interaction with the person and the payment details so we can see how to assist in resolving the issue,” she said.

*Oha Bade is a pseudonym for the surveyor who did not want to be named in this report.
The post Siblings in N352,404 Debt After Returning Unwanted Loan to EasyBuy appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.