After concerns were expressed by the users, Apple took the decision to remove about 6 predatory loan apps from the App Store in India. Reportedly, users revealed that the apps were engaged in deploying outrageous tactics, which involved asking for fees up to half the loan value and threatening the users with fake nudes to be sent to their contact list.
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Some users have recently noticed that some quick-loan applications, like White Kash, Pocket Kash, and Golden Kash, have started to show up on the Top Finance Applications chart. Among the removed apps, four of the apps had previously made it into the top 20 financial apps in India.
As per a report by Tech Crunch, a user from last month expressed, “I borrowed an amount in a helpless situation and […] a day before repayment due date I got some messages with my pic and my contacts in my phone saying that repay your loan otherwise they will inform our contacts that you r not paying loan.”
The applications’ creators, who had odd last names and dubious websites, were the subject of hundreds of similar reviews, some of which shared even more ominous threats they claimed to have received from the lenders.
According to Apple’s statement to Tech Crunch, the apps were withdrawn because they were in violation of the rules and the Apple Developer Programme Licence Agreement. The apps were “falsely representing an association with a financial institution,” according to Apple, which discovered this.
According to Apple, “The App Store and our App Review Guidelines are designed to ensure that we are giving our users the safest experience possible.” The company further added, “We do not tolerate fraudulent activity on the App Store, and have stringent rules against apps and developers who attempt to cheat the system.”
Apple has long argued that antitrust authorities shouldn’t compel it to permit third-party apps since only the official store can shield iPhone users from malware and scams. However, it does appear to have accepted the inevitable, at least in Europe. Others have been less persuaded by the countless instances of fraudulent apps that have passed the App Store review process and are now making millions of dollars annually, with Apple, of course, taking a piece of the profits.
The main distribution channel for predatory lending apps in India has historically been the Google Play Store, whose Android mobile operating system dominates the country’s smartphone market. In the past year, Google and the nation’s central bank have actively intervened to correct the situation, requiring that lending applications disclose their terms to users, hold themselves accountable and transparent, and restrict their access to users personal data.
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