Hyderabad: Police, RBI discuss loan app frauds

Hyderabad: The Police Commissioner of Cyberabad, VC Sajjanar, on Thursday met with the RBI officials led by Regional Director K Nikhila, and discussed the ongoing fraud of loan-based apps.

The meeting took note of the grave misuse of online applications by NBFCs and other entities in the name of offering instant personal loans. Highlighting the modus operandi of these offenders, the Commissioner said, "These applications are developed by companies that have an agreement with various NBFCs and others. Such entities develop and run the apps and promote them through social media. Apart from it, they have also started call centers for making calls to the loanee in case of default."

They categorise defaulters into different buckets, based on the number of days that lapsed from the due date and make threatening and abusive calls and send messages not only to the loanee but also to the relatives and his/her contacts. "They are also resorting to sending fake legal notices as if it is sent from CBI in order to induce fear among the defaulters/loanees," explained the top cop.

The RBI officials highlighted the awareness campaigns and programmes initiated by them to prevent such kind of crimes. The officials suggested that the public can report information about unverified/unauthorised apps to the concerned law enforcement agencies or use RBI's Sachet portal (https://sachet.rbi.org.in) for filing online complaints. Complaints against the entities regulated by the RBI can be accessed through RBI's Complaint Management System (https://cms.rbi.org.in).

Cyberabad Police also appealed to the public not to fall prey to these online instant loan apps and if there is harassment. People can contact Cyberabad police through 'Dial 100' or WhatsApp number 9490617310.