New Delhi: Even as online loan app syndicates and operating digital loan sharks continue to raise concerns about the exploitation of vulnerable and financially-stressed individuals, a new case has come to these loan sharks have reportedly sent morphed nude pictures of a beautician in Mumbai.
As per a report in the Free Press Journal, a beautician from Mumbai had borrowed Rs 10,000 from an app called Everloan that she had bumped upon while browsing social media. As is the procedure, being followed by these online loan sharks, an individual as to agree to give access to his/her photo identity, documents and other digital/mobile access, the woman accepted the money on a ‘minimal interest’ and a ‘seven-day repayment window’ on April 1, FPJ reported.
On April 7, the woman started getting calls for loan repayment. The loan agents pressurised her into paying the money within seconds, threatening to send her pictures to her contacts. And to her dismay, after she hurriedly made the payements, she recieved nude morphed pictures of her on her mobile phone.
The woman approached LT Marg police while unknown perpetrators have been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.
Last year, in November, an e-survey was released by YouGov, in which it found that 72 percent of all Indians have fallen prey to various kinds of online scams/frauds in the recent past, as reported by IANS. The survey found that online shopping scams top the list (27 per cent), followed by fake job offers (26 per cent), bank/card phishing (21 per cent), investment scams (18 per cent), lucrative lottery hoaxes (18 per cent), social media swindles and loan offers (17 per cent each), fake charities and government phishing (12 per cent each), and dating App frauds (11 per cent).
Though a huge number of gullible Indians have been duped in one or more scams, only 30 per cent bothered to report them to the authorities concerned and 48 per cent claimed to have got their money back, in the quick survey covering 1,022 people in the 18-plus age group.