Bengaluru: Loan app agents blackmail woman with ‘morphed’ photos

A 29-year-old woman in eastern Bengaluru was allegedly blackmailed by loan agents despite her repaying the debt she availed on an app. The incident came to light after Afrin Khan (name changed) from Nagavara filed a police complaint.

According to Afrin, she downloaded ‘Manchest fin app’ online as she needed money. After downloading it, on April 18, she availed a loan of Rs 12,390. On April 23, Afrin said that she repaid Rs 21,000 via the app as interest and other charges.

“After this, I never asked for any loan from them,” the victim alleged in the police complaint.

To her horror, after she repaid the debt, she began receiving harassing calls.

“Someone is threatening and harassing me, demanding money for a loan I never took,” Afrin said, adding that the loan agents contacted her from a phone number with a Pakistan country code (+92).

“The account they mention has been closed for some time now. What's worse, they've started sending morphed images of me to many of my contacts, trying to scare and embarrass me,” she added, as per the complaint.

Afrin told the police that the unknown people were sending her links for a payment of Rs 10,000: https.collectionloan-e619a4:ingress-earth.easy and Sen.amountazeem.

“I'm really scared and don't know what to do,” the complaint said, adding that her “fabricated” images were already shared with some of her contacts.

A case has been registered under sections 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form), 66C (punishment for identity theft) and 66D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

Police sources said that investigations have been launched. A police investigator warned that people should be careful while downloading unsolicited applications from dubious links and should be careful while giving APP permissions such as gallery, media, contacts, phonebook, etc.