Loans are notoriously hard to get for most college students because they are not eligible for such facilities from standard lenders. Des...
The disgusting practice was brought to national attention when a victim – a university student going by the pseudonym of Li Li – desperately sought help from the police after loan sharks requested that she send them a photo of herself in the nude, holding her ID card.
The online loan shark group had granted her Sh7,600 (a 500 yuan) loan in February with a weekly interest rate of 30 per cent. Unable to pay it back in time, the debt inflated beyond Sh153,988 (10,000 yuan) in a very short while, and at one point the loan sharks threaten not to renew her loan unless she also provided a nude photo of herself holding her ID, which Li reluctantly agreed to.
However, after four months, her debt had inflated to Sh846,936 (55,000 yuan), with the lenders threatening to send the embarrassing photos to her parents and relatives or sell it to highest bidder. At which point she went to the police asking for help.
During questioning, Li told officers about many other of her university colleagues who had fallen in the same trap, but were too embarrassed to speak out. This story prompted a journalistic investigation into online money lending which revealed that nude pics of young girls as collateral was common practice.
One Indian reporter posed as a female student asking for a loan and offering nude selfies as collateral, and was approached by no less than five online lenders in just one hour.
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