Cash-strapped and in dire need of 30,000 naira (about $20), Mariam Ogundairo turned to a loan app, downloading it and registering her phone number.

The money was quickly sent over but came with a 21.6 percent interest rate, due in two weeks. Like many in Nigeria, battered by inflation, Ogundairo was too broke to pay back what she owed.

Then came a deluge of harassment -- a tactic that has become the hallmark of many loan apps in Africa's fourth-largest economy.

"They started calling my phone contacts when I couldn't pay back on time, saying I owed them," Ogundairo told AFP. "I lost my security, and it makes me so sad and scared."

Such loan apps in Nigeria, branded "predatory" by campaigners, are texting threats and leaking sensitive photos to their mobile phone contacts when people squ

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