A man who had taken a loan from a mobile-based soft loan app lodged a complaint with Baguiati police station in northeast Kolkata on Thursday alleging that a man claiming to be an employee of the mobile app was trying to extort money from him.
According to the victim the “employee” demanded money or else threatened to circulating objectionable photographs of his wife and him.
Sishir Mondal, who works for a pharmacy store in Baguiati, had logged into the app titled Kreditgold for a loan because of a medical emergency at home, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.
According to the officer, a few days later Mondal got a call from a man who introduced himself as an employee of the mobile app and asked him to immediately return the money along with the interest.
“Mondal returned the money as told. However, he got a second call where the caller demanded more money from him and threatened to circulate objectionable photographs of his wife and him on the Internet if the demand is not met,” the officer said.
A few minutes after the second call Mondal received several morphed photographs on WhatsApp, the officer added.
Mondal lodged a complaint with Baguiati police station soon after he got the photographs.
“We have received a complaint and have taken the numbers from which Mondal had received the calls,” said a senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate.
Another senior officer said that people should be careful while logging into third party apps and giving it access to their contact list and photo gallery. “We should verify the credibility of any app before installing them,” the officer said.