We review plenty of loan apps and financial products here, and from time to time we come across an app on the playstore that has been designed by scammers to extort money from unsuspecting borrowers.

This app has been on Google Playstore for months now and has over 100k downloads, the developers are running ads thereby attracting more unsuspecting victims.

When you first download the To U Loan app, they will ask you to fill out your normal KYC details, this is done to make the app seem legit as other loan apps also demand for KYC info. They’ll ask for your name, address and BVN, then they will ask you to bind your ATM card to your account to make an upfront part payment of your loan or pay a processing fee.

This is the scam, they might offer you a high loan amount like 300k which will motivate you to make an upfront payment of a token like 4k to process your loan. once you made this payment the app will start to redirect you to the adverts of other loan providers.

To U Loan is a scam, they don’t have any functional phone number for contact. The office address displayed on their app and on playstore is fake. Their email address is also a hoax as it wont even deliver when you try to send them a message.

How to detect a fake loan app

1. Loan apps asking for KYC information including your BVN and asking you to bind your ATM card to your account is normal, but when an app is asking you to make upfront payments or pay for processing fee, such an app is most likely a scam.
2. Always read other customer’s review on play store or read reviews on websites like this before downloading any loan app.
3. If an app does not have a contact phone number, or the phone number is not functional, that is a redflag.
4. Pay attention to fake reviews on Google playstore, most of this apps pay spammers to write reviews for them. Most of the reviews will be from foreign accounts and will mostly give the app a five star without any reasonable comment.
5. Dont part with money for what ever reason before getting your loan.
6. there are a lots of loan sharks operating without regulation in Nigeria, know that Playstore does not rigorously verify this apps, it is up to you to do your research before doing business with them.

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