Loan sharks demanding nude photos: Chinese online lenders want pics as collateral - TomoNews

  • 8 years ago
BEIJING — Online loan sharks in China have come upon a new way of guaranteeing loans from female coeds in need of some cash: demanding nude photos.

According to the state-run Southern Metropolis Daily, web-based lenders are asking the college students to send nude photos of themselves as a form of collateral, along with copies of their ID cards.

They are threatened that if payments are not made on time, the photos will be made public.

One of the women told the paper that she first borrowed 500 yuan ($76) from a loan shark with a 30 percent weekly interest rate. She was forced to take out new loans to pay off the old ones, and her debt ballooned into 55,000 yuan ($8,437) when the lender demanded a nude pic of her as a guarantee for new loans.

The woman said several of her female classmates had also been caught up in the scheme but didn’t want to speak out.

The newspaper claims that loan sharks suspended the practice after it published a story on the practice.