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These scams are going on in India too. Typically they offer $100-$200 loans, and there is no legal framework. Victims are afraid to go to the police. Even if so

These scams are going on in India too. Typically they offer $100-$200 loans, and there is no legal framework. Victims are afraid to go to the police. Even if someone goes to the police, these apps are all running from China, and they can't do much about it. From the BBC article: "The people running the apps gained access to all the contacts on his phone and his pictures, and have threated to send nude pictures of his wife to everyone on his phone."[1] It is a horrible system, and Google doesn't care about poor people getting scammed. Some victims even committed suicide because of the threat of releasing their private data. [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61564038 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61564038

nikanj 4y ago
It’s interesting how popular Google products remain, considering their well-earned reputation of Never Giving A Shit
- rahimnathwani 4y ago
  "these apps are all running from China" I'm curious about this. Can you please tell us more?
  - nixcraft 4y ago
    The servers for these apps are in China, but the owners are in other countries, Mexico, India, China etc. So it is hard for police to get a warrant to shut down servers when crossborder issues are involved. I am not an expert in such crimes, but they make it hard for local police to shut them down.
    - oefrha 4y ago
      If the government can ban TikTok and a bunch of other popular apps overnight, surely it’s not hard to get scam apps removed from Google Play if they cared at all?
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        Wasn't the TikTok ban only effective because ByteDance didn't try to evade it?
    - pdntspa 4y ago
      Interesting... I was under the impression that it was hard to get hosting in China unless you have a chinese company with the CCP's blessing So do they let foreigners set up hosting accounts in China then?
      - bobkazamakis 4y ago
        are you asking what laws criminals are following?
        pdntspa 4y ago
        No, I just thought the chinese government regulated internet hosting very closely. Or implying that it is also complicit in these schemes.
      - toast0 4y ago
        Might be easier to get Chinese hosting if the traffic doesn't go to China?
jimmaswell 4y ago
1. Buy a cheap used phone+burner sim for $20 2. Set up a fake Google account, nudes from Google image search, and scammer numbers as contacts 3. Take these loans and wipe the phone or let them "hack" the worthless phone 4. Profit as these people being out of reach of the police goes both ways?
- notdang 4y ago
  They don't approve the loans automatically. They go through your photos, social networks,calls, etc. to make sure it's a real account.
  - duxup 4y ago
    This sounds like a sorta fun thing to try to pull off…
  - brundolf 4y ago
    New use for generative AI?
    - artificial 4y ago
      Yet another argument for empowering the phone as a user agent. All data should be mocked unbeknownst to the application. Faker should be built in for all of these collection points.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    That can be easily faked. Seems susceptible to sybil attacks.
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      It's surprisingly difficult to fake years worth of conversations with family and friends... The loanshark can say "show me the conversation with your boss. Show me the conversation with your mom.". They can cross reference things between the person's memory and the conversations. They can download all the conversations and put them in a database so the same conversation set can't be used to take out another loan. They can also call your contacts to confirm details - ie. 'can you confirm Mary is your daughter? Does she have 2 cats and a dog?'
vishnugupta 4y ago
I came here to mention about situation in India too; so I'll add on to this. Enforcement Directorate (ED) of India in a span of one week has frozen bank accounts of two crypto companies on the charges that Chinese lending apps were using them to move the money out of India. First WazirX[1] a popular exchange and then Vauld[2]. [1] https://bit.ly/3PrKk5g https://bit.ly/3PrKk5g [2] https://bit.ly/3djQ9V2 https://bit.ly/3djQ9V2
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kumarm 4y ago
Information related to Google Play and Indian loan apps here seem to be driven by inaccuracies. Most of loan apps require users to download APK and side load them. Google play removed a number of them from Play app store. What is the role of Google here? Make it harder to side load apps in countries like India? I would think it raises more issues than it solves.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  When the apps in question are being sideloaded, Google shouldn't be doing anything about it. The government should instead, by freezing the accounts that the scammers want the loan repayments to be sent to (or if the accounts are with foreign banks, ban domestic banks and payment processors from sending any money to them).
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Appreciate that the RBI is going tough on digital lending. The number of scammy, scummy app based lenders was getting out of control.
klabb3 4y ago
> These scams are going on in India too. [...] and there is no legal framework. They said this about Mexico as well, but this doesn't ring true. Even if the microfinance market is unregulated, extortion, death threats and harassment must surely be serious crimes. Perhaps the issue is enforcement? I assume the app operators obfuscate their ownership and ops, but a even a minimally functional major crimes unit must at least be able to catch the worst offenders, no? Or at the very least just have Google/Apple disable the apps.

nikanj 4y ago

It’s interesting how popular Google products remain, considering their well-earned reputation of Never Giving A Shit

rahimnathwani 4y ago
"these apps are all running from China" I'm curious about this. Can you please tell us more?
- nixcraft 4y ago
  The servers for these apps are in China, but the owners are in other countries, Mexico, India, China etc. So it is hard for police to get a warrant to shut down servers when crossborder issues are involved. I am not an expert in such crimes, but they make it hard for local police to shut them down.
  - oefrha 4y ago
    If the government can ban TikTok and a bunch of other popular apps overnight, surely it’s not hard to get scam apps removed from Google Play if they cared at all?
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      Wasn't the TikTok ban only effective because ByteDance didn't try to evade it?
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    Interesting... I was under the impression that it was hard to get hosting in China unless you have a chinese company with the CCP's blessing So do they let foreigners set up hosting accounts in China then?
    - bobkazamakis 4y ago
      are you asking what laws criminals are following?
      - pdntspa 4y ago
        No, I just thought the chinese government regulated internet hosting very closely. Or implying that it is also complicit in these schemes.
    - toast0 4y ago
      Might be easier to get Chinese hosting if the traffic doesn't go to China?

jimmaswell 4y ago

1. Buy a cheap used phone+burner sim for $20 2. Set up a fake Google account, nudes from Google image search, and scammer numbers as contacts 3. Take these loans and wipe the phone or let them "hack" the worthless phone 4. Profit as these people being out of reach of the police goes both ways?

notdang 4y ago
They don't approve the loans automatically. They go through your photos, social networks,calls, etc. to make sure it's a real account.
- duxup 4y ago
  This sounds like a sorta fun thing to try to pull off…
- brundolf 4y ago
  New use for generative AI?
  - artificial 4y ago
    Yet another argument for empowering the phone as a user agent. All data should be mocked unbeknownst to the application. Faker should be built in for all of these collection points.
- cowtools 4y ago
  That can be easily faked. Seems susceptible to sybil attacks.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    It's surprisingly difficult to fake years worth of conversations with family and friends... The loanshark can say "show me the conversation with your boss. Show me the conversation with your mom.". They can cross reference things between the person's memory and the conversations. They can download all the conversations and put them in a database so the same conversation set can't be used to take out another loan. They can also call your contacts to confirm details - ie. 'can you confirm Mary is your daughter? Does she have 2 cats and a dog?'

vishnugupta 4y ago

I came here to mention about situation in India too; so I'll add on to this. Enforcement Directorate (ED) of India in a span of one week has frozen bank accounts of two crypto companies on the charges that Chinese lending apps were using them to move the money out of India. First WazirX[1] a popular exchange and then Vauld[2]. [1] https://bit.ly/3PrKk5g https://bit.ly/3PrKk5g [2] https://bit.ly/3djQ9V2 https://bit.ly/3djQ9V2

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kumarm 4y ago

Information related to Google Play and Indian loan apps here seem to be driven by inaccuracies. Most of loan apps require users to download APK and side load them. Google play removed a number of them from Play app store. What is the role of Google here? Make it harder to side load apps in countries like India? I would think it raises more issues than it solves.

josephcsible 4y ago
When the apps in question are being sideloaded, Google shouldn't be doing anything about it. The government should instead, by freezing the accounts that the scammers want the loan repayments to be sent to (or if the accounts are with foreign banks, ban domestic banks and payment processors from sending any money to them).

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Appreciate that the RBI is going tough on digital lending. The number of scammy, scummy app based lenders was getting out of control.

klabb3 4y ago

> These scams are going on in India too. [...] and there is no legal framework. They said this about Mexico as well, but this doesn't ring true. Even if the microfinance market is unregulated, extortion, death threats and harassment must surely be serious crimes. Perhaps the issue is enforcement? I assume the app operators obfuscate their ownership and ops, but a even a minimally functional major crimes unit must at least be able to catch the worst offenders, no? Or at the very least just have Google/Apple disable the apps.