The lure of getting the fastest loan approval through instant money loan mobile applications can land you in trouble. Some of these apps not only access phone contacts of customers but also use those details to abuse the customer if he/she fails to repay the loan. Senior Police Inspector and In-charge of Cyber Cell Raghvendra Kshirsagar told ‘The Hitavada’ that more than 12 such complaints were received so far in which employees of the companies had abused the customers. PI Kshirsagar explained that needy customers were falling prey to the offers of the companies with their catchy advertisements.
“After seeing an advertisement, the customer thinks that this is the easiest way to get a loan and install the application of the company in their mobile phone,” he said. After the installation, the app asks for permission to access contacts, phone calls and media and the user grants permission without a second thought. With these permissions, the central servers of the companies collect all contact details and media from the mobile phone of the customer. Another police officer informed the problem starts after the loan is approved by the company. If a person gets a loan of Rs 5,000, the company debits only Rs 3,500 to his bank account after deducting Rs 1,500 as processing fees.
Nationalized or reputed private banks offer per annum interest rate on loan, however, these application-based companies offer only per day or per month rate of interest. Hence, interest on the principal amount increases steadily without the knowledge of the customers. When the customer fails to repay the loan, the company starts abusing and threatening on mobile phones. In the second step, they use contracts of the customer and start sending them messages about the customer. Even they use WhatsApp Display Picture (DP) of the customer, the loan documents and send the pictures to the contacts including relatives or office staff of the customer stating, “This man is fraud and not repaying our loan.” In one case, a Nagpurian had to end his loan by paying Rs 4.5 lakh to the company due to the high rate of interest, the official said.
