“It’s no secret that Opera isn’t doing so well in the era of Chrome dominance,” reports Android Police. “According to a report published by Hindenburg Research, the company’s losses in browser revenue have apparently led it to create multiple loan apps with short payment windows and interest rates of ~365-876%, which are in violation of new Play Store rules Google enacted last year.”
The apps are aimed at India, Kenya and Nigeria, reports Engadget:
The apps would claim to offer maximum annual percentage rate (APR) of 33 percent or less, but the actual rates were much higher, climbing to 438 percent in the case of OPesa. And while they publicly offered reasonable loan terms of 91 to 365 days, the real length was no more than 29 days (for OKash) and more often 15 days — well under Google’s 60-day minimum. The conditions only got worse for borrowers who missed their payments. Falling short by just a day could raise the APR as high as 876 percent.
Also, the apps reportedly scraped phone contacts to harass family, friends and others with calls and texts in hopes this would pressure customers into paying up. These same notices often threatened legal action.
Android Police points out that Opera became a public company in mid-2017, shortly after it was purchased by a China-based investor group.
But since then, “Opera’s market share has continued to fall, due to the increasing dominance of Chrome.”
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot