Who will save us from the shackles of international fraudsters who have now gone into loan app(loan sharks)? Don’t be deceived by the recent bill of clean health that some federal government agencies like the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) and the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau (NDPB) gave to close to 200 of such fraudsters with the claim that these are the genuine ones and are thus free to operate under the law.
My thinking is that these so approved group are either owned by surrogates of the FCCPC and NDPB or are operating with their tacit approval having wet the ground. Anything goes in Nigeria.
My odyssey with these NEWEDGE FINANCE LIMITED operators of EASYBUY started the day I walked into a phone and accessories store located on the ever busy Airport Road in Benin City to purchase a telephone handset. The one that I eventually showed interest in was way beyond what I could afford at that moment so I opted for a deal called swap whereby I would trade in the handset I was then using, add some amount of money as down payment and add up the balance by instalment payment spread over six months.
I had my second thoughts about the deal considering that a lot of stories abound in the past whereby people relate their terrible experience when they cannot comply with some of the absurd terms of their deal with the loan sharks. Their contacts are called randomly by total strangers who make unverifiable claims that the customer who is a friend of the contact has defrauded them to such a large sum of money.
My confidence was that barely a month earlier the federal agencies had assured Nigerians in national newspaper publications that such dirty, unprofessional conduct was now a thing of the past. But how wrong was I to take the federal agencies for their words.
Payment of the first instalment was problem free as I did the payment about a week ahead of the agreed time. The second instalment was when the problem started as I was knocked off by a mild fever about a week to the agreed date of payment. Some three days to the date I called the EASYBUY representative in the outlet where I got the phone a CAMON 19. His very shocking response was that he does not have his organisation’s management staff direct phone contact.
It was while I was thinking of how to get in touch with the EASYBUY management staff to explain my predicament and plead for a little time extension to pay my second instalment that the unimaginable happened around 1 midnight on the day that the payment was due. I got an alert of activity on my bank account. A check showed that the account had been hacked into and a substantial amount of money withdrawn by a person, who at that moment, I didn’t know.
I had one of the longest nights in my life as I monitor the bank’s sms notifications announcing more withdrawals. I jumped out of my bed before 6am and dashed to the bank in a rush. When I got to the bank to make enquiries I was informed that the withdrawal was done by EASYBUY. I then ordered for the account to be blocked to prevent further illegal intrusion.
Subsequently, I have been going through harrowing experience trying to convince the fraudsters that I will not default in subsequent payments. They will hear nothing of such rather I have been subjected to cyberstalking, cyberbullying, intimidation, false accusation threats etc on almost hourly basis. They now resort to calling me and sending threatening sms to me with fraudulent numbers that can be traced to scammers. Such numbers include 018887506, 092990194, 092990197, 092990193, 092990195, +1 502-378-1155, 018871828, 018871821, 018871822, 018871825, 018871823 and 018871829.
This apart they now place intrusive sms on my phone screen making it impossible for me to have optimum use of it. Also I no longer have access to majority of my apps which EASYBUY and NEWEDGE FINANCE LIMITED have blocked.
Thinking I could get a respite from the FCCPC and the NDPB I sent mails to them via their authenticated email box but no response. I also sent messages to their advertised phone and WhatsApp numbers but nothing concrete came out of it. Even as I write this for four days now their numbers 08056002020 and 08056002020(FCCPC) and 09160615551(NDPB) have been permanently switched off. The fraudsters have now threatened FINAL WARNING AS ALL ACCOUNTS LINKED TO YOUR BVN IS FLAGGED & A GSI TRIGGER PLACED ON IT. YOU HAVE TILL 5PM TO PAY EASYBUY ELSE, THIS ACTION TAKES EFFECT.
Who will save us from these fraudsters and their paymasters masquerading as federal agencies?!
