On the afternoon of December 16, 24-year-old P Sunil held his five-month-old son for a long time while he and his wife Ramya, 23, watched television at their home in Kismatpur in Hyderabad. Then, He went to another room and hanged himself.
In the days after, the police discovered that that morning Sunil had received dozens of phone calls and messages from numbers linked to instant loan applications. “I knew that I had borrowed through the applications. He could not pay because he had lost his job during the confinement and received calls continuously, even at night, full of abuse. They threatened to present FIR, block his bank account, defame him. I was worried all the time. To pay off one loan, he took another and ended up with a debt of more than 2 lakh rupees, ”says Ramya, now at his in-laws’ home in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.
In recent days, the Telangana Police have received at least 90 complaints from similar victims, who borrowed money through applications that pay off loans in half an hour, charge high interest and are believed to work together. An offender is subjected to constant harassment, over the phone, including false FIR messages and court notices, and is humiliated in front of friends and family. There have been reports of three suicides and one suicide attempt.
Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda Police in Telangana have written to Google to remove 158 instant loan applications from the Google Play Store. Telangana police have raided offices and call centers in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Gurugram, from where hundreds of staff members made calls to customers. The 14 arrested include a Chinese national, allegedly behind 11 of the applications.
Cyberabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar said they fear “thousands may be silently being abused and harassed, afraid to seek help.” A preliminary investigation has revealed transactions close to 1.4 crore worth nearly Rs 21,000 crore, according to a statement from the Hyderabad police, reported by PTI.
D Balraj, a deputy inspector at the Rajendranagar police station investigating Sunil’s case, said Sunil had 30 applications for instant loans. “Due to high interest rates, he had to repay almost double the amount he had borrowed. He got a new job and was going to join a week later, but the recovery agents had started calling his contacts. “
Sunil used to work as a developer at a game company in Madhapur in Hyderabad, before he was laid off. He initially used a credit card to pay his bills, but when the fees increased, he started borrowing from instant loan applications.
Before using pesticides on December 12, Kirni Mounika, 24, sent a message to the instant loan app Fly Cash, one of 55 on her phone, saying, “You already ruined my life.” Four days later, Mounika, the only member of her family earning money, with three younger siblings who are still studying, died.
After a degree in agriculture, Mounika joined the job as an agricultural extension officer in Rajgopalpet village in Telangana, earning 37,000 rupees a month. “She was lively, hard-working. He had joined two years ago and was already a role model among junior officers, ”says P. Sravan Kumar, District Agriculture Officer.
In addition to taking care of household expenses, Mounika’s salary covered tuition and hostel fees for her three siblings. Police found out that he first borrowed Rs 16,832 on November 1 from Cash Bean. When the due date of November 7 came, he borrowed Rs 22,000 from Credit Bean on November 5. “From November 1 to December 9, he borrowed 2.71 lakh rupees, of which he had repaid approximately 2.50 lakh rupees. From the way the money was deposited into his account, which ranged from Rs 2,800-7,000, it appears that he borrowed from one application to pay off the other. Also, some apps seem to have pushed or convinced her to download new apps. He kept paying until December 9, at which point he owed more than Rs 1 lakh as interest and the apps had started sending messages to his contacts, ”said Rameshwar Rao, ACP, Siddipet Division.
After this, police said, Mounika stopped borrowing and sent messages asking for two or three days. As found in other cases, the recovery agents deployed a combination of tactics: They made hundreds of calls and inundated his phone with text messages and WhatsApp, sending fake FIRs, fake court notices, and fake letters flagged to the RBI to block his bank. accounts, Aadhaar and PAN. On December 11, they sent messages to her phone contacts, including her best friend Sahaja and her mother. On December 12, while she was packing her bags to attend Sahaja’s wedding in Warangal, instant loan apps began to message her photo to WhatsApp groups of her office colleagues and family members, calling her delinquent. At 5 pm on the same day, Mounika used pesticides.
Mounika’s father, Kirni Bhoopani, is an ex-sarpanch and, although he is not rich, the family had some political connections in Nangunur Mandal. “I don’t know why he took those loans. If I had known, I would have stopped her, ”says Bhoopani.
Unaware that she is dead, recovery agents have been making at least 40 calls a day and sending at least 250 messages in recent days to Mounika’s phone.
Two days after Mounika’s death, D Santhosh, 36, used pesticides at his home in Malkapur, after sending a video selfie to his friend B Subramanyam saying that he had been trapped in a cycle of debt. On December 23, Santhosh passed away. “He blamed five instant loan application companies. If he ignored his phone calls, they would call his family members … It seems there wasn’t a minute of respite, ”says Subramanyam.
Santhosh worked as Site Manager at SL Trans in Ramagundam Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited. He lived alone, with his family established in Visakhapatnam. “During the confinement he asked to borrow money. He paid for most of it, but got caught in a cycle. Took Rs 9,319 from Udhaar Loan; Rufilo rupees 9,197; Rs 4,230 from Reepay; Rs 16,660 from AAA; and 11,770 Loan Gram rupees. He ended up with a debt of 51,176 rupees, the interest of which was another 50,000 rupees, ”said DCP P Ravinder.
According to the police, most of the instant loan applications are not approved by RBI. Police Commissioner Sajjanar said: “Once a person gets a loan, other app operators convince them to apply for more loans. In many cases, after a customer has paid the full amount, more amounts are paid without the customer requesting it. The operators of the application set the trap carefully, without revealing all the details. If a person urgently needs 5,000 rupees, they will receive only roughly 3,800 rupees, after deduction of “processing fees and GST”. Therefore, clients are forced to borrow from other applications. “
Having obtained the consent to access the list of contacts, photos, documents, etc. While the loan is being paid off, the applications have those details with them.
The raided call centers belong, among others, to Liufang Technologies, Hotful Technologies, Pinprint Technologies and Nabloom Technologies, registered in Bengaluru; and Onion Credit, CredFox Technologies Pvt Ltd and Digipeergo Tech Pvt Ltd, in Hyderabad. Digipeergo is owned by Chinese citizen Zixia Zhang. In Pune, the police raided Jiya Liang Infotech, which operated 10 instant loan applications.
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