Payments
Loan apps that message your contacts
An app sent as a link can read your contacts and then threaten them. Do not pay extra fees to make that stop.
Some lending apps arrive as a link, not from the Play Store. They ask for contacts, photos, and SMS. After a small loan, the calls start. Family members receive messages that you are a defaulter, often with insults, and the app demands more money to close the loan.
What to do
Do not install a loan app from a WhatsApp or SMS link. If it is not in the official store under a name you can check, leave it.
If it is already installed, uninstall it after you have saved screenshots of the threats and the lender’s name.
Tell your contacts the messages are from the app, not a description you wrote.
Do not keep paying new “processing” or “closure” fees to unknown accounts. Those payments often continue the harassment instead of ending it.
Report at cybercrime.gov.in. You can also report an unregulated digital lender on the Reserve Bank of India’s Sachet portal at sachet.rbi.org.in.
A genuine lender does not need your photo gallery or the right to message your family. Permission requests like that are a reason to close the app before you submit the form.
If money has already left your account, call 1930 or report at cybercrime.gov.in. This page is awareness information. It does not file a complaint.