APA-Dakar (Senegal) – A collective has filed a complaint for “collection of personal data for fraudulent purposes and harassment.”
She never thought it would happen to her. Khady (not her real name), who lives in Mbour, a town about 80 kilometers from Dakar, dreamed of earning a decent living. But life is full of difficulties, and one day the young woman had to borrow money to meet a basic need. “I didn’t even have enough to eat,” she said.
While surfing the Internet, Khady came across an advertisement that caught her attention. It was for a company offering tempting loans of 500,000 CFA francs (764 euros) to be repaid within 180 days. The company was Ouest Crédit. Thinking she’d found the solution to her financial problems, the young worker enthusiastically registered on the platform to get in on the action.
M. D., a thirty-something from Senegal’s capital, took the plunge out of curiosity. “It wasn’t complicated. After downloading the application, you open an account by providing the information requested: last name, first name, phone number and those of two close relatives with details of the relationship, a copy of your ID and a selfie,” he explains.
At the end of this process, a message with an OPT code (one-time password) is sent to the applicant’s number to confirm account activation. The applicant can then apply for credit. But the reality has nothing to do with the promise of the billboards flooding social networks. “I was disappointed and dismayed by the service,” recalls Mr. D.
The dream of the “promised” half a million in loans was gone. Small amounts, rarely more than 15,000 CFA francs (22 euros), are offered by the company, which, along with Seneprêt, is in great demand on this new market. At least a dozen structures offer this type of service in Senegal.
For Mr. D., this was only the beginning of bad surprises. The interest rate on the loans is very high and the repayment period is short. “With Seneprêt, my first loan was for 3000 CFA francs (about 5 euros). I paid back 4050 CFA francs (more than 6 euros),” he says. That’s an interest rate of 35%.
Ouest Crédit is worse, according to him. “On this platform, I received 7650 CFA francs (about 12 euros) after borrowing 10,800 CFA francs (almost 17 euros). But I paid it back before the deadline,” he says sadly.
Anta, another “victim” with whom we spoke, lives a waking nightmare because of the “harmful acts” of her creditors. She’s referring to the countless text messages and phone calls she receives to remind her of the deadline, which can’t exceed five days. After that, the subscriber must pay penalties.
“And if you don’t pay the debt, they go into overdrive by contacting your relatives,” denounced Jean Pierre Faye, coordinator of the Collective against online credit.
Small services, big consequences
In a press release issued on January 9, the Ministry of Finance stated that “these practices, which have gone viral on social media, are a source of fraud.” As a result, the source advised, “people are asked to stop any activity with the aforementioned institutions.”
We tested this by installing the Senesprêt application on our smartphone. When we arrived at the “Disclosure Statement” section, we read: “We collect all your SMS data. We look at the name, description and amount of the transaction to assess the credit risk. This allows for faster and faster loan repayments.”
The fact that these companies “can do whatever they want with their users’ personal information has caused a lot of damage,” Mr. Faye complained. “Some have lost their jobs because their employers have been called, others have had marital problems because their husbands have been contacted as guarantors,” he added. In order to prevent the situation from getting out of hand, he took the initiative to create a collective that now has about a hundred members. They all claim to be victims of online lending structures.
On Thursday, January 11, 2024, a complaint was filed with the Special Cybercrime Unit for “harassment, collection and use of personal data for fraudulent purposes.” Contacted by APA, the Personal Data Protection Commission (CDP) laconically admitted that “proceedings are underway following the receipt of a complaint from victims” of the online loans.
What about the legal arsenal?
“Anyone who has collected personal data by fraudulent, unfair or unlawful means shall be punished by imprisonment of one to seven years and a fine of between 500,000 F CFA (761 euros) and 10,000,000 F CFA (15,242 euros), or by one of these two penalties only,” states Article 431-22 of the Senegalese Criminal Code, as amended in 2016.
According to the Ministry of Finance’s press release, online credit companies operating within the framework of decentralized financial services are illegal. Article 20 of the law regulating decentralized financial systems, adopted in September 2008, states that they are required to display their company name on their signs, billboards or other signs, followed by references to the text governing them, the authorization, the registration in the register of decentralized financial systems in the category in which they have been authorized.
However, none of the online lending structures in question displays the information required by article 20, exposing them to the application of article 74, which punishes any violation of article 20 with a fine of 250,000 CFA francs (381 euros).
In an attempt to get in touch with the heads of the denounced structures, APA managed to speak with an employee of Ouest Crédit for the last two months. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he refused to take any responsibility. “I have nothing to do with it. I’m just an employee,” he defended himself.
However, he went on to insist that users “accepted all the conditions presented to them before receiving their first loan”. According to him, Ouest Crédit has 800 employees in the Dakar region, spread over four sites. “Here (he mentions a district on the outskirts of Dakar), we have 150 operators. Since I took office, I’ve handled the files of more than 300 people who have paid their debts without any fuss,” he assures us, not without asking the state to do everything in its power to preserve their jobs.
“If a foreigner does it for them, the State must accompany them and not mortgage hundreds of destinies,” he continues, pointing out that the Chairman and CEO of Ouest Crédit is a Chinese national.
A view that is certainly not shared by the hundred or so members of the collective against online credit. They hope for nothing less than the disappearance of platforms whose methods are less than Catholic. It’s going to be an uphill battle, all the more so as some applications have changed their name or logo on download centers such as the Google Play Store. Ouest crédit is now called Prêtpourvous. On the phone, it has become Beau Crédit.
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