October 24, 2024
Claim: Lapo giving N10,000 Loan through a website
Verdict: False Context
Background:
On October 14, 2024, a Facebook page with the username NLG, posted promotion content on its wall that LAPO Microfinance Bank is giving loan to the members of the public, urging them to apply as instantly as possible.
The promotional content was attached with an image bearing the logo of the microfinance bank, and some added compelling information captioned “How to Apply for N10,000 Lapo Loan” and further direction with a weblink tagged “Lapo.com” and other commands that urged the Facebook users to “Apply Now.”
Posts like this have continued to rise on social media platforms, particularly Facebook, as a result of the Nigerian economy’s high cost of living, inflation, and a plummeting exchange rate, which has left many Nigerians in poverty and lacking financial stability.
Therefore, without considering the returns on their loans, many Nigerians have turned to borrowing money from financial institutions, loan sharks, and other financial technology companies.
Capitalising on this, there have been some cases in the when these loan companies have been accused of breaching the data privacy of their customers to reach out to their close relatives and businesses in the process of recovering loans acquired.
Similarly, some impersonators of these loan organisations and financial institutions have created cloned websites to steal users’ personal information while posing as the real loan companies.
Due to the magnitude of this development on businesses whose reputation could be dented and how it could affect the members of the public, we decided to verify the website used to promote this loan advertisement on Facebook.
Verification
When we clicked on Lapo.com, a weblink attached with the advertisement on the facebook handle, it directed us to an isolated website, which only has two contents, which are “HOW TO GET LAPO LOANS, CLICK TO START HERE”. When we followed the direction given to us, we were redirected to a completely different website “TEASER SERIES”, a websit that is used to advertise relocation to Australia, with the front page that is captioned “10,000 Visa Sponsorship Offered for Skilled Australian Immigrants”.
For clarity and to ascertain the truth, we visited the LAPO official website for comparison and we noticed that the website has a different interface from the one advertised on Facebook. The home page of the official website of the microfinance bank has information about its operations and some ongoing promotions that they are currently running.
We clicked further, and it took us to learn more about the microfinance bank, to legitimise their operations, and how to acquire loans on the platform, which explains the difference between the weblink attached to the Facebook post and the official website of the microfinance bank.
Home page of the Lapo official website
Further look into the LAPO Official Website
We also reached out to LAPO Microfinance Bank for further clarification on the advertisement by calling their official customer line and the customer representative who spoke with us and identified herself as Pearl debunked the claim.
According to Miss Pearl, the advertisement on Facebook for N10,000 loan did not emanate from LAPO, and it should be disregarded. “ I can authoritatively tell you that post did not come from LAPO, and people should be aware of such posts, because as long as it did not come from our website or our official Facebook page, it might be a scheme to scam them”.
Conclusion
After examining the website posted on the Facebook page to advertise the LAPO loan and realising that it is different from the LAPO official website, and after our further conversation with the customer care of the microfinance bank, we can conclude the claim is misleading and false context.
