Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Crime Branch issued an advisory Tuesday. It alerted people not to avail of loans from unregistered and illegal apps available on internet and the play store. People must not try to avail loans from illegal apps like INS Loan , Beloan App , Flipcash , Go Cash , loan India , Loan Loan , Palm tree , Cash cola , kreditbee, Asan loan , Rupee Wallet , fast Rupee , easy credit loan App , Sunshine loan and Rupeeking loan App, said the EOW in its advisory.
The cyber criminals offer small amounts of loans ranging between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 to the people who download these illegal apps from internet and play stores. The accused also credits money to the account of many people without any formal requests in this regard, EOW sources said.
Sandeep Nayak, a resident of IRC village under Nayapalli police limits in the city here, had received Rs 5,220 in his account without requesting for loans from anybody. He had just downloaded a loan app after coming across it on Instagram.
Later, the cyber criminals sought unreasonably high interest rates from Nayak. They also hacked Nayak’s phone and shared obscene messages pictures to his contacts, EOW sources added.
“It is hereby advised/ requested to the public that they must not take any loans from unregistered/ illegal loan apps available on internet and play store. On pretext of advancing loans, the cyber criminals access/ hack all information from the customers’ phones, which may later be used by the company to perpetrate some other financial crime. Such loan apps also harass the customer by charging high rate of interest. The cyber criminals also send obscene and indecent photos to the victims’ contacts,” said the EOW in its advisory.
This apart, the agents of these companies also constantly humiliates the victims and their family members.
“In some states, people have committed suicide after facing blackmail and humiliation from the recovery agents of these illegal loan apps. Not only the borrowers, but their family members also faced harassment. All are advised that one should avoid downloading/ using these illegal loan apps,” added the EOW in its advisory.
The EOW has advised people, who have already downloaded the apps and taken loan through them, to inform the police regarding any harassment meted out to them by the recovery agents.