Inside the spam call machine behind Nigeria’s digital lending boom

In early 2025, Peace*, a research assistant at Covenant University, Ogun State, Southwestern Nigeria, had a health emergency and was short on cash. So, she did the first thing that came to mind: open the OPay app to take a loan.

She navigated to EaseMoni, a loan product offered through OPay’s lending arm, reviewed the repayment terms, and took some loans. It was ₦6,000 ($4.21) the first time. Then subsequently, ₦24,000 ($16.85).

Peace told TechCabal she repaid the loan before the one-month deadline, closed the app, and moved on. The app, however, did not.

A few days later, the calls began: an automated and relentless stream of reminders about loan discounts and improved offers.

“It was like an automated response, [talking] about how my loan discount has increased and how I should apply for a new loan,” Peace said. “Mind you, you don’t even have to eventually take the loan for them to bombard you with calls. Just going over the options alone without eventually borrowing will trigger the calls.”

Months later, she says, the calls have not stopped. “I’ve been looking for how to turn that [call] thing off, but I can’t find [how to]. It’s so annoying,” she said.Peace is not alone. In January 2026, Lagos-based growth professional Franklyne Ikediasor shared a curious experience on LinkedIn. After embarking on what he described as a personal “exercise” to understand Nigeria’s booming digital lending market, he found himself at the centre of a flood of unsolicited loan pitches.

Ikediasor said his experiment allowed him to “test and experience a wide range of loan applications firsthand, reviewing limits, disbursement speed, interest rates, fees, and repayment structures.”

Despite only interacting with a select few platforms, he soon began receiving calls and messages from lenders he had never even heard of, some offering to “buy over” his existing loans in a bid to capture his interest.

“This is clearly illegal,” Ikediasor told TechCabal, adding that he scanned the 200-page terms-of-use documents for data-sharing loopholes. “Because I interacted with one application doesn’t mean that data should be passed to another. It’s not just an infringement; it’s predatory.”

For a researcher and growth professional like Ikediasor, it did not sit right.

“On average, I get about three [spam] calls a day,” he said. “I’ve already had two today. Some are robocalls, but others are human beings speaking to you,” he said.

Their experience points to a broader issue: some digital lending companies and telcos have become persistent in calling their users. Across Nigeria, customers report a barrage of unsolicited promotional calls that disrupt work and invade privacy.

For many, the calls continue even after they block numbers, clear outstanding debts, or—in extreme cases—delete the app entirely. Customers say these calls are rarely from human agents. Instead, users claim they are greeted by automated recordings pushing a variety of financial products, from airtime coupons to loan limits.

The implications of automation that persists after an app is deleted go far beyond annoyance. It could allow Nigerians to normalise calls from random, unverified mobile numbers, creating a massive opening for vishing (voice phishing) scams, involving tricking people into sharing sensitive information over the phone.

According to a 2025 report by the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL), phishing is one of the most frequently reported cybercrimes in Africa. The report stated that cybercriminals regularly impersonate recognised authorities and prominent corporations, exploit widespread unemployment by offering fabricated jobs, and use mobile platforms for prize-related and emergency-based scams.

Since users are accustomed to organisations using unofficial channels to push loans, they are significantly more vulnerable to fraudsters who mimic this tone to hijack accounts.

TechCabal also conducted a broader survey with 120 respondents across Nigeria. 79.2% said they frequently receive spam calls. The respondents include 54 Nigerian employed professionals whose workdays are being systematically interrupted, while the other respondents are students and unemployed young people.

Of the 95 respondents who reported receiving these calls, 36 named OPay as a primary source of harassment. Other frequently cited sources included associated services such as EaseMoni and OKash, as well as telecommunications giants such as MTN and Airtel.

EaseMoni, OKash, MTN, and Airtel did not respond to requests for comments as of presstime.

TechCabal also spoke to 20 OPay customers across Lagos, Ogun, Abuja, and Plateau states. Their accounts revealed a consistent pattern: a high-frequency calling model that persists regardless of loan status, often utilising a rotation of mobile numbers to bypass blocks and filters.

Adedayo Ojo, an associate consultant at TechCabal Insights, who says he receives OPay calls “at least four times a week,” captured a recording of one.

In the audio clip, a female robotic voice said: “Enjoy a daily interest rate as low as 0.3%. Borrow ₦10,000 and repay as little as ₦10,900 in one month. Log in to your OPay app now to check your limited-time offer.”

Click below to answer or decline the call.

OPay declined to comment as of the time of publication.

OPay’s rise in Nigeria, following its entry in 2018, was built on simplicity. Months after entry into the country, the company implemented the strategy of using a phone number as an account number.

This design choice lowered the barrier to entry for millions of unbanked Nigerians. However, this same phone-number-as-identity model inadvertently created a double-edged sword. While it made onboarding seamless, it also turned their direct phone lines into the primary target for the company’s customer retention and marketing strategies.

Several current users were originally acquired through OPay’s earlier ecosystem approach, which included services like ORide, an on-demand motorbike ride-hailing service, and OFood, a food delivery service. By consolidating those users into a unified database, OPay successfully retained the users as fintech customers.

The Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023 mandates that data controllers, including fintechs, must secure informed and explicit consent before processing personal data for direct marketing.

According to Itunu Dosekun, head of the media unit at the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), using customer data collected for banking purposes for marketing violates Nigeria’s data protection law and “is a crime.”

Truecaller displays the caller ID of the person calling, even when the recipient does not have the number saved.