Don’t google into the jaws of loan sharks

The sharks get hold of the entire gallery of photos of men and women and morph them into nude and compromising positions and tag them to their friends and relatives.

The promise of instant loans at the snap of fingers is too alluring for people, but it ends up in a terrible nightmare for those in a desperate need of money. Chinese loan application agents often end up taking hold of the loanee’s contact list and photos, and threaten to morph them before circulating them among their contact list comprising relatives and friends.The sharks get hold of the entire gallery of photos of men and women and morph them into nude and compromising positions and tag them to their friends and relatives.

Evading cops

Explaining their modus operandi, Praveen Kumar Tangella, Associate Director, Alliant Group (a tax and business consulting firm), told TNIE that the agents first target ‘vulnerable’ people. The target is to lure them into taking loans but without demanding any ID or documents, which comes as a temporary sigh of relief for many. In this process, the agents would make them install a suspicious application from Google Playstore, which is often removed a day after to evade law enforcement authorities, to get hold of the user’s data.

Apple’s iStore doesn’t allow such applications, but Google’s store lets these apps run riot and for free, he said, adding that a lot of people, particularly those who have a poor CIBIL score, fall prey to such frauds and give away unfettered access to their data.

Praveen mentioned that such fraudulent firms acquire potential targets by tracking those whose loan applications were rejected or people who Google terms such as ‘low interest loans’. They claim to be third-party partners of banks and even impersonate bank staffers to trap them, he added.In a few instances, applications like Teamviewer and AnyDesk have also been used to gain access to the user’s mobile, he added.

Bad credit score

People, particularly those who have a poor CIBIL score, fall prey to such frauds and give away unfettered access to their data.

Few times, applications like Teamviewer and AnyDesk have also been used to gain access to the user’s mobile