Man ends up paying ₹2.5 lakh for a ₹40K loan, files complaint

According to the police, the victim had applied for an online loan of ₹10,000 from an app which claimed that he had three months to repay the debt

Mumbai If you are in an urgent need of money, be careful of where you’re borrowing it from, especially if it’s a mobile application. This 28-year-old Jogeshwari resident, who borrowed ₹40,000 from six different loan apps, ended up repaying ₹2.5 lakh after he started receiving calls from 31 different mobile numbers every day.

Just about five days after he applied for the loan in May, he started receiving calls from different mobile numbers blackmailing and threatening him to repay the amount (HT File)

The latest victim of loan recovery agents, the media firm executive filed a complaint against unidentified persons for harassment at the Meghwadi police. Just about five days after he applied for the loan in May, he started receiving calls from different mobile numbers blackmailing and threatening him to repay the amount.

According to the police, the victim had applied for an online loan of ₹10,000 from an app which claimed that he had three months to repay the debt.

However, he started receiving calls just five days later. “I had granted the app access to my contacts as it was mandatory to receive the loan,” said the victim. The recovery agents threatened to share his morphed pictures with his family and relatives and forced him to repay the loan by applying for the amount from another app which charged him an interest.

This way, he ended up taking ₹30,000 more from five other loan apps.

“Like this, I was forced to repay ₹2.5 lakh which I had to borrow from my friends and siblings,” added the victim.

When the victim refused to pay anymore, the agents sent his morphed photos to his friends and relatives and labelled him a rapist, “It was so embarrassing. The police said they are trying to trace the seven apps- Crazybee, Cash Advance, Dove Cash, TrackO, Onstream, Papa money, and Shuttle loan- as they operate from distant locations. They are operational on Google Playstore despite the RBI order asking for the removal of the app for violating banking norms,” he said.

A police officer added, “The recovery agents even started harassing the complainant’s relatives, parents, family members and office colleagues after the victim stopped answering their calls. We are tracking the 31 numbers from which the victim received harassment calls.”