Rise in shady illegal loan apps
Finance apps that ask for full access to contacts, messages, photos, etc. are a red flag, especially if it’s a loan app. A lot of these lending apps are digital avatars of predatory moneylenders (Sudakhor in Hindi).
The number of people getting fleeced by shady and illegal loan apps has gone up significantly. Many individuals caught up in the web of these apps frequently resort to drastic actions, such as suicide. For every illegal loan app that’s banned, two new ones pop-up. It’s become a game of whack-a-mole.
What makes these apps disgusting is the fact that many of them deduct as much as 10% upfront. Then there’s the fact that interest rates range from 50% to 100%, or even 200%+. It’s impossible for people who borrow on these apps to repay with such usurious terms. But considering people who borrow on these apps are desperate, they don’t notice the fine print.
Traditional loan sharks resort to physical threats to recover money. These loan apps harass people by calling all their contacts and sharing private photos and lewd pictures that are morphed.
I have always wondered: What if someone uses a new SIM and phone with no contacts, photos, or messages? What would these apps do to recover money if someone gamed this system? It’s not like these illegal loan apps report to credit bureaus.
To know more about the nuisance of these illegal loan apps, watch this full video on the Zero1 (Zing earlier) YouTube channel.