Fintech company, OPay, is facing scrutiny and questions from Nigerians and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) as numerous individuals are discovering that they have accounts with the company without their prior knowledge or consent.
This issue came to light on the social media platform X, on Monday, as numerous users confirmed that they have found OPay accounts linked to their mobile numbers, even though they never initiated the account setup process.
Mystery surrounds OPay accounts
OPay, a licensed mobile money operator, utilizes customers’ mobile numbers as their account numbers.
However, it remains unclear how individuals who never engaged with the company for account opening are now seeing their mobile numbers associated with OPay accounts, complete with their full names.
To verify these claims, an experiment was conducted using a phone number that had never been registered with OPay.
A GTBank app was used, and it successfully displayed the Analyst’s full name associated with the mobile number.
A test transaction was initiated to transfer N200 to the account, which was successful. However, the destination of the transferred funds remains uncertain.
This revelation began when an X user, @hackSultan, shared his discovery of having an OPay account, as did all members of his family, despite none of them ever initiating the account setup process.
This led to others checking their mobile numbers in a similar manner. To do this, they attempted to send money from another bank app, selected OPay as the receiving bank, and entered their phone number as the account number without the first “0” digit.