Individuals who have been patronizing online loan services have been cautioned not to fall victim to scammers and fraudsters.
Victims of such act who spoke to Ohene Kinnah on Plan B FM’s late afternoon show EBAANOSEN on condition of anonymity stated that a lot of loan apps on play store are scammers.
“I saw the advert on social media claiming that they give loans without collateral and with low-interest rates and i have to pay within 90 days for any amount you applied for, so i downloaded the App to apply for a loan because i needed money to sort things out, after downloading the App it requested for all my credentials, it takes a picture of you and cue into your contact list to have access on your phone, after a successful registration i requested for Ghs1000 but to my surprise, i was given only Ghs170 which was sent to me through my mobile money and ask to repay Ghs 260 within 6 days but on the App, it supposed to be 90 days and they did not give me the amount i requested for. But in the end you will end up paying more money to them.” He stated
Another victim narrating his ordeal also said,
“These apps are designed to provide short-term loans to individuals who need emergency cash. However, the ease of access to these loans has come at a cost as many loan apps are illegally accessing people’s phone books and sending threatening messages to loan defaulters”.
The problem of illegal access to phone books and the sending of threatening messages to loan defaulters has become widespread in Ghana. It is reported that many loan apps obtain access to the phone books of their customers when they download the app. This access is often disguised as a requirement to grant loans.
However, the real intention of the app developers is to use this access to extract the phone numbers of friends, family members, and colleagues of their customers.
Once these phone numbers have been extracted, these loan apps use them to send threatening messages to loan defaulters. These messages often contain threats of legal action, harassment, and public shaming. Some loan apps have even gone as far as using fake caller IDs to pose as law enforcement officials or debt collectors in an attempt to intimidate borrowers into paying back their loans.
The two gentlemen then urge the public to be vigilant not to fall victim to these malicious and scammers’ loan Apps on social media.
They called on the government to intervene because the rate at which these fake loan Apps are springing up is alarming.
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