Mumbai: Acting on several complaints of harassment and threats made by fraudulent loan recovery agents to customers, including the one where a 38-year-old-man from Kurar, who fell prey to the scam and died by suicide, the Maharashtra cyber police has written to Google Play Store to remove 15 loan apps.
The police said that the apps have been selected after an analysis of the complaints received in the state by 48 cyber police stations, including the four cyber crime police stations of the Mumbai police.
“Most of these loan apps were developed after Covid-19, luring several people who lost their jobs and needed money. These apps offer easy and quick loans, they (the fraudsters) trap people with high processing fees, irrelevant taxes, and exorbitant interest rates. However, people taking loans should not get afraid of such apps, if they have taken loans from them and are harassed, they should immediately report the incidents to the police,” said Sanjay Shintre, Superintendent of Police, Maharashtra Cyber.
He added that they have also made a checklist to guide the cyber crime police stations in investigating such cases.
“The Reserve Bank of India has already constituted a working group on digital lending and the group has recommended that in the medium term, the government may consider bringing legislation to prevent illegal lending. The group’s research had found that out of the 1,100 lending apps that are currently operational, 600 of them are illegal,” said the…
