Loan app harassment: Techie loses ₹45 lakh, gets threat calls

The accused avail the SIM through fake IDs and use bank accounts of people from remote villages in north eastern states, a police officer probing the case said.

Borrowing ₹ 12,500 from a mobile loan app proved costly for a 40-year-old engineer who was forced to pay ₹ 45 lakh over the last 1.3 years . The victim, Potta Anand Kumar, borrowed ₹ 12,500 in April 2021 and ended up paying ₹ 12,328 every day for the last one year and three months.

In his complaint, Potta Anand Kumar, a resident of Hulimavu, said that he had borrowed the loan in April 2021 during the COVID lock down when he was unemployed. The victim said that he had repaid ₹ 24,000 along with the interest within a week. Despite repayment, Kumar started getting threat calls from different numbers and was being abused regularly demanding to pay more money.

The caller even accessed the list of his contacts and started sending them messages and blackmailed him with the morphed pictures of his wife, he alleged. They threatened to upload it on social media if the money is not paid and forced him to transfer as much as ₹ 45 lakh online to different accounts till recently, he said in his complaint.

Despite this, when the calls demanding more money increased, Kumar approached the south east division cyber crime police and filed a complaint recently.

Based on the complaint, the police are trying to track down the callers through the mobile numbers and bank account details provided .

Cases of loan app harassment are on the rise as it is difficult to track down the accused who have availed the SIM through fake IDs and are using the bank account of people from remote villages in north eastern states. They offer these account holders a little money every month, a police officer probing the case said.

In a similar case, a 27-year-old doctor from a well-known hospital complained to the north east division cyber crime police that she was being harassed despite repaying double the amount of loan she had borrowed.