Loan Lending Smartphone Apps are Blackmailing Clients With Personal Data

The list of blackmailing loan lending applications include Barwaqt, PK Loan, Easy Loan and Fast Loan

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has launched an investigation against Pakistan’s loan lending smartphone applications. According to news from the FIA’s Cyber Security Wing (CSW), many loan lending applications in Pakistan were involved in blackmailing of clients.

List of apps that were carrying out this black mailing operation include famous names such as Barwaqt, PK Loan, Easy Loan, and Fast Loan.

Promising loans at 2.6% interest rates, these loan lending applications were asking users to pay a 40% markup, but how were they doing so?

Well, these applications were actually gaining unlawful access into your device and personal information. This includes contacts, personal data and even pictures at times.

Asking clients to pay back a whopping 40% markup, these applications were threatening those that refused to do so. The threats include leaking of contacts and even private photos.

FIA in their report mentioned that these applications also illegally took money from users saying that they need to ‘resolve some issues’.

According to the FIA, these applications targeted women a lot more than men. The agency finally decided to take action when it recieved a number of complaints from female users.

What’s more concerning is the fact that most of these companies were operating without having a registration from the State Bank of Pakistan.

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