A college student who had taken a loan of Rs 3,500 through a loan app on his android phone was allegedly being harassed by some other agencies for repayment of loans he never took.
The student reported the matter to New Town police.
According to the youth’s complaint, some of the people on his contact list have received WhatsApp messages from unknown numbers containing his Aadhaar card photo with the words — “fraud” and “rapist” written on them.
Many small finance companies give short-term loans at a high rate of interest and operate through apps that can be downloaded on smartphones.
Police said they have been getting harassment complaints against such finance companies.
“I took a loan from one app and returned it within the stipulated time. Then I started receiving WhatsApp messages from unknown numbers who were sending me photographs of my Aadhaar card with the words “rapist” and “fraud” written on them. When I asked them what they wanted, they told me to repay a loan which I never took,” said the second-year college student.
“One of the companies claimed that I owe them Rs 20,000 while another said if I did not repay their loan, they would circulate my morphed Aadhaar card to my contacts,” he said.
The youth lodged a complaint after his his father and a woman friend received his morphed photographs saying he was a fraud who took a loan and was not returning the amount.
When cops started probing the matter, they found that some of the apps from where the complainant was getting messages had already been removed from Playstore.
“Practically, it is very difficult to track the people behind an app which has already been banned or removed from Playstore,” said an officer in Bidhannagar police station.
The complainant said he has been advised by the police to block the phone numbers harassing him and to uninstall the app if it is still installed on the phone.
The Telegraph had reported a few days ago about a New Town resident who has lodged six police complaints against several loan apps some of which had sent his morphed photograph with a woman to one of friends whose number was on the contact list. While others were blackmailing him to repay loans that he did not take.
Senior police officers said, in both the cases, the mistakes that the complainants made was to give permission to access photographs, location and contact while downloading the app on their mobile phones.
“Once you give permission to access your contact book, your photograph gallery and your location, chances are that the app would misutilise them,” the officer said.
In this case, the college student told The Telegraph that he gave his Aadhaar card while downloading the loan app.
Police said most of the loan apps have nexus among each other and once someone shares his personal data with one app, it can be easily accessed by other loan app operators.
