Mon, 8:30 a.m. Apple Services cmkIn India, apps that provide small loans quickly and easily are being used more and more often, and of course there are many such offers in the App Store. The poorer population in particular, who do not have access to credit from regular financial institutions, use such offers. But as usual, there are of course also a lot of black sheep who use unfair methods against customers. A few days ago there were media reports about some such apps – and Apple then wiped them out of the App Store.
Among other things removed the concern OK Rupee, Apple Pocket Kash, White Kash and Golden Kash from the store. In the user reviews of these apps, there are many reports that the operators are blackmailing debtors into repaying them.
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Apparently, these financial apps read the users’ phone book – and intimidated the customers shortly before the loan’s due date: If there is no repayment, the financial service provider threatens to inform all contacts in the user’s address book about the user’s debts and the missing repayment.
AI nude pics
But apparently there is another level of escalation: Artificial intelligence can be used to take deceptively real naked pictures of people quite easily. Some of the user reviews of the now-defunct apps report that customer service threatened to send such AI nude photos of the debtor to all contacts in the address book if payment is not made soon. It is not yet entirely clear how the financial company obtained source image material from the debtor in order to fabricate the AI nude photos: either the photo library was accessed or the borrower had to upload one or more photos as verification when taking out the loan .
Apple: Not a financial institution
How such apps make it to the App Store remains a mystery. Apple said the app’s makers misrepresented that they were affiliated with a financial institution — which apparently wasn’t the case. How exactly the manufacturers were able to fool Apple in this way will probably remain a secret.
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