A Nigerian business owner has raised concerns over OPay’s “potential risk” alert system, claiming it is negatively affecting her business and discouraging customers from completing payments.
The lady, identified on Facebook as Grace Anuoluwapo Lois, shared her experience in a detailed post, questioning what triggers the warnings—especially for relatively small transactions.
“Customers are getting scared off,” she says
Grace explained that several of her customers have reported receiving a “potential risk” warning when attempting to transfer money to her OPay account.
According to her, the issue appears more frequently when multiple payments are made within a short period of time.
While some customers inform her and proceed with the transaction, she believes others may abandon payments entirely, leading to lost sales without her knowledge.
Questions over small transaction alerts
The business owner expressed surprise that even low-value transfers—sometimes below ₦10,000—are being flagged by the system.
She questioned the logic behind the alerts and warned that they may unintentionally make her account appear suspicious to customers.
She wrote:
“I want to know what exactly triggers your potential risk alert when someone is about to transfer to an account, especially when the amount isn’t that huge (below ₦10,000 even).
Whenever I have a lot of people sending money to my account in a short period of time, I keep getting complaints from some of them that they want to transfer but got a warning from OPay.”
“My business is losing money,” she claims
Grace added that the recurring alerts have made her consider stopping the use of OPay for business transactions altogether.
She argued that while the platform may be trying to protect users, the system may also be hurting legitimate business owners on the receiving end.
“Now, I’m sure not everyone who encountered this ended up informing me. Some must have just chickened out and not continued with the transaction. That means my business is losing and I’m not even aware.
“Scam alerts and potential risk alerts is such a sensitive thing to put out when you are not sure the person is a scam. Please work on your system… I think I’m done with you guys until I’m very sure this won’t happen again.”
Another incident involving ₦2,500
In a follow-up post, Grace revealed that her sister also experienced the same alert while trying to send just ₦2,500.
She said the situation nearly caused another customer to back out, but she had to encourage them to complete the payment through another platform.
“This afternoon, my sister wanted to send ₦2,500 to me and this was the notification she got… just ₦2,500 ooo,” she said.
She added that a student who was registering for one of her classes also encountered the warning but eventually proceeded after switching to another payment option.
Growing concerns over digital payment alerts
Her complaint has since sparked conversations online, with users debating whether such fraud-prevention systems are necessary or overly aggressive in ways that may affect small businesses.
Many users noted that while scam protection is important, there is also a need to ensure that legitimate transactions are not unnecessarily disrupted.
