A 24-year-old Public Relations executive, Sneha Singh (name changed), landed in trouble after she accidentally downloaded a fraudulent loan app while she was searching for a video editing application. Just minutes after the app was downloaded, scamsters stole a photograph of her even as she uninstalled the app realising the mistake.
Ms. Singh has filed a complaint at Halasuru police station. She said she started to receive messages saying that she had taken a loan of ₹3,500 and she had to pay it back immediately. When she ignored the messages, she started getting calls from unknown numbers with foreign codes.
Ms. Singh told The Hindu that for about two days, she was getting calls continuously and when she picked up a call, a man on the other side speaking in Hindi hurled abuses and asked her to pay the money. “I told him that I had not taken any money from the app. But the caller refused to listen,” she said.
Later, a pornographic video was sent to four of her contacts, including family members. The obscene video had used Ms. Singh’s photo as a thumbnail. The video was sent on WhatsApp. She said she had informed the family about such a possibility as she had read about incidents of loan fraud. On the insistence of her friends, she approached the police after which messages and calls stopped.
