The gabis collections standard

What a business chasing you through gabis may do, and what it cannot do — because the software will not carry it.

Version 1 · enforced in firebase/functions/src/policy.ts · last changed 4 September 2026

Debt collection has a reputation it earned. Messages at midnight, the same demand six times a day, threats, and calls to somebody's family or employer. Most of it is not illegal in Nigeria so much as unpoliced, and every tool on the market leaves the choice to whoever is chasing.

gabis takes that choice away. The rules below are not a promise about conduct — they are conditions the sending code checks before a reminder goes anywhere. A business using gabis cannot turn them off, raise the limits, or send outside them, and neither can we without changing published software.

The rules

Between 8am and 8pm, Lagos time

A reminder due outside those hours is held, not queued up and released at midnight. outside_hours

One a day. Three in a week.

Counted from a log of every attempt, not from intent. A business that also chases you by hand does not get a fourth automated one. already_today · weekly_cap

Three attempts, then a person

The third message says it is the last automated one, and it is. After that a human from the business contacts you directly, or nothing does.

Reply STOP and the automated reminders end. Permanently.

Not for thirty days, not until the next invoice. The refusal is recorded against you as a person, and it survives new invoices, new debts, and the business trying again. refused · do_not_contact

Nothing is chased before it is owed

No reminder exists for an invoice that is not yet due, or for a balance that is already zero. not_due · nothing_owed

Every attempt is written down, and nobody can edit it

Each reminder is recorded with its time, its wording, and the rule that held back the ones that were not sent. The log is append-only in the database rules: the business that sent them cannot alter or delete one, and neither can gabis staff. If you dispute what you were told, there is a record that was not written by the side you are arguing with.

What gabis will never send

A message to your employer, your family, your guarantor, or anyone who is not the person who owes the money.
A threat of arrest, prosecution, violence, or public exposure.
A claim that your name has been passed to a credit bureau, a lawyer, or the police.
Anything pretending to come from a court, a bank, or a regulator.
A demand that hides which business is asking.

If something breaks these rules

Then it did not come from gabis, whatever it claims. A business is free to pick up its own phone, and some will — that is between you and them, and Nigerian law, not something this software did. But no message sent through gabis can breach the rules above, because the code that sends them checks first.

If you received something through gabis that you believe breaks this standard, tell us at [email protected] with the message. The attempts log will show exactly what was sent and when, and it cannot have been edited afterwards.

Why publish it

Because a rule nobody can check is a marketing line. These are in a file anyone can read, in software that businesses run against their own customers, and the standard is the same whether or not anybody is watching. If another collections product wants to claim the same, it can publish its own and let people compare.

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gabis is a financial technology company, not a bank.