[NelsonMinar]

Love all the comments here from folks who haven't read the article and are going on about the browser. This article is about Opera's alleged fraudulent loans business. Well really this article doesn't have much of its own to say, it's mostly a rewrite / summary of this article: https://hindenburgresearch.com/opera-phantom-of-the-turnarou...

[DyslexicAtheist]

...

Opera was purchased by a China-based investor group prior to its IPO. The group’s largest investor and current Opera Chairman/CEO was recently involved in a Chinese lending business that listed in the U.S. and saw its shares plunge more than 80% in just 2 years amid allegations of fraud and illegal lending practices.

Post IPO, Opera has now also made a similar and dramatic pivot into predatory short-term loans in Africa and India, deploying deceptive ‘bait and switch’ tactics to lure in borrowers and charging egregious interest rates ranging from ~365-876%.

Most of Opera’s lending business is operated through apps offered on Google’s Play Store. In August, Google tightened rules to curtail predatory lending and, as a result, Opera’s apps are now in black and white violation of numerous Google rules.

[wildrhythms]

Wow, that was a wild report and a good read. The detailed look into the predatory short term load apps is a real eye-opener... the apps would read the device contact list and shame late borrowers to their employer, parents, friends... and in developing places like Kenya and Nigeria. Truly, TRULY fucked up!

[dessant]

It appears only OPesa was taken down so far from Google Play. OKash, OPay and CashBean are still available. CashBean's keyword stuffed app ID [1] is remarkable, this is the first time I've seen such a spammy app ID on Google Play.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.loan.cash....

[netsharc]

So I guess this is what JWZ termed "Brand necrophilia" - taking a brand you bought and using it for another product (in his case it was AOL reusing the brand "Netscape" for a cheap ISP service).

Then again it seems the Opera mobile itself hasn't mutated to a predatory credit app, so it might not apply here.

[LeoPanthera]

I wonder how difficult it would be for HN to flag/highlight comments from people who did not click the link first.