Thinking of taking out a loan via an app? Your data could be at risk

Nowadays, all it takes is a few clicks to take out a loan during a financial crisis. A plethora of apps now offer instant one-click loans. Although loan dispersal has become much easier these days, it also comes with some very serious consequences that could make your life hell.

I recently started getting ads on Facebook for apps that can offer instant loans on Android and iOS devices. At first, these apps seemed very lucrative and claimed to offer low interest loans with zero or minimal documentation. In reality, they typically charge interest of over 36% per year.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on a few of these apps as well, which took me to the Google Play Store page. Similarly, on my iPhone, I was redirected to the App Store. With online security and personal data collection at an all-time high, these apps collect almost everything you have on your phone.

When cross-checking, I found that these apps collect much more data on an Android smartphone than on an iPhone. This data collection includes your precise location and personal information including name, email address, user ID, address, phone number and other information as part of the prevention fraud and security compliance.

If you think this is the worst, I would also like to remind the fact that most of these apps also collect message data, photos, videos, files, documents, contacts, phone activity. application, application information and device identifiers. To sum up, these apps just clone your phone and will store all your personal data in the cloud.

Forget the loan, don’t even install these apps

If you receive an advertisement on Facebook or any other online platform that claims to offer an instant loan, we suggest that you stay away from it. These apps are just plain evil and your data can be heavily misused. They collect your personal information as soon as you install the application, and if your phone contains sensitive data, it can be used in a traumatic way.

It seems that these apps have found a loophole in Google Play regulations that allow them to collect all kinds of data. Although an educated person might realize this while giving the access, many users who want a quick loan can ignore all the warnings and give the required permission to the app to collect the necessary data from the device.

Although they mainly misuse the data of those who do not pay EMIs, there is no guarantee that this data of the rest of the users will not be sold to a third party. Although most of these apps are also available on the App Store, they cannot collect as much data as an Android smartphone.

Online portals are currently filled with similar complaints about how these apps torture users by transforming photo/video. They even call spam all your phone contacts with the fake story is just the tip of the iceberg and what these apps can do with your data.

Why didn’t I mention any apps?

Not a handful of apps do this, the Apple App Store and Google Play Store are currently filled with hundreds of instant loan apps. Another easy way to find out is to check the comments section, especially the comments with a one star rating, which tell the truth about these creepy apps.

Always take loans from RBI registered institutions

You want a loan ? Your bank or any other financial institution registered with the RBI is the best friend. Although getting loans from these platforms may involve a bit of work, at least they won’t steal your personal data and use it to threaten you.

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