Harassed by app-based lending firms, 23-year-old techie dies by suicide in Chennai

A 23-year-old techie died by suicide in Chennai after being allegedly harassed by app-based lending firms.

According to a News 18 report, the techie was allegedly facing continuous harassment by organisers of loan app firms, who also threatened him to release some of his morphed images.

As the matter came to light, the Tamil Nadu Police warned the public against falling prey to loan app firms.

Several cases of harassment by instant-loan lending apps have been reported in the past as well. In July this year, a report claimed that several youngsters in Telangana were taking extreme steps following loan app harassment.

In one such incident, Kotipalli Shiva Kumar from ARP Camp in Yedapalle Mandal of Nizamabad district had taken a loan of Rs.4,500 from a small credit loan app on June 12 and repaid the loan amount within a week, News 18 had reported.

Despite the repayment of the loan, the app organisers threatened him to morph the images of his family members and post them on social media if he failed to pay an amount of Rs 4,500. Following this, Shiva Kumar paid the said amount to the organizers.

However, this was of no good as, according to the report, the organizers morphed Shiva Kumar’s Pan card and started showing him in a bad light on social media as a drug dealer and pimp.

In another case reported by the Hindustan Times, Vishal Diwan, an IT professional, had that he had found five apps and applied for a loan on all of them. "Within minutes, I received ₹24,000 in all from five different accounts," he said.

Diwan, however, was "shocked" to find out about the interest rates later. "I was shocked to find that I had to repay Rs 8,000 for every Rs 4,800 I borrowed from each app within seven days," he was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, inspector DS Hake of the Pune cyber police had hinted at a rise in loan app firms’ harassment rising.

He was quoted by the Times of India as saying: “...we are getting more and more complaints from people, mostly from middle- and lower-middle-class families, about harassment by loan app companies...In the first two months of this year, we have received 445 complaint applications against loan app companies, while in 2021, we had received 928 such applications and another 837 pleas in 2020."

In December 2020, the Telangana police said that it had busted a Pune-based call centre allegedly used for harassing borrowers of online app firms for recovery and arrested three people, including a Chinese woman.