Digital money-lending platforms, also called “montadeudas aps,” have spawned new forms of extortion, such as: Cell phone blocking by a Malwarewarned the Citizens Council for Security and Justice of Mexico City.
How does debt accumulation app blackmail work?
He added that this new mode consists of applications that inject a Malware in which You can turn off the screens of the devices for which the loan was appliedin addition to the authorization to access documents, photos and contacts of the phone from which the loan is requested.
“This new method has been identified to force payment of debts, which is essentially cell phone hijacking (…) If you download these loan applications, you will do this.” You will be asked to enter your mobile phone number in addition to your personal documents and grant access to your contacts’ photo gallery documents, etc. This action allows the installation of malware that is activated when the person controlling the process indicates that a payment has not been made; The screen will lock and prevent you from using the device.”
He also emphasized that the Council You have received 19,200 reports relating to mountains of debtwhile from August 2022 to August 2023 there was a 68% decrease in this type of extortion.
The most commonly reported complaints relate to “phantom charging”.
“That is, they offer to deliver money, but do not deliver it, and then charge the amount as if they had delivered it. This new focus on debt management helped address this decline, as we noted throughout this year. So collecting phantom debts is the most commonly reported problem.”
But there is also a way to collect debts Threats and insults, threats to disclose information due to non-payment, charging of contacts, slander due to debts, excessive interestDeposits below the required amount and harassment.
However, he emphasized that it was a “phantom charge”. Way of working According to the complaints received by the Citizens’ Council, these types of debt mounting apps are the most commonly used Women are the most affected by this type of digital criminals who would take advantage of their situation.
“We are talking about women in a work situation who probably have very high cash flow needs to take care of family matters, which could be medical, school, professional or to support a family member. So women are the main target of debt collectors.”
