I came across this post on Twitter about a loan shark. Though the tweet says EasyPaisa loan, it is Sarmaya Microfinance’s EasyLoan scheme.
Quite a few people jumped on it but this summarizes it well
These are loan shark terms. These fintech companies and regulators hide behind such statements that “everything is mentioned in the terms and conditions that the borrower signed”. Unfortunately, most of these borrowers aren’t financially savvy and they are borrowing from these platforms because they are in need. While reported interest rate may be low, with all these fees and charges applied, the loan becomes unbearably expensive. Then the loan sharks use threatening language to harass the borrower and force him to repay the loan which is usually a multiple of what the borrower borrowed.
This has become my new favourite meme
In the comments of the above tweets, I came across this.
Being a desktop researcher, I did what I do best__ run a Google search, or in this case, a Twitter search of Barwaqt. The rest of the post is based on what I came across Twitter.
This is what the BBC report in the above link says
ان افراد نے راج کے فون میں موجود تمام نمبرز اور ان کی تصویروں تک رسائی حاصل کر لی اور دھمکی دی کہ ان کی بیوی کی عریاں تصاویر ان کے فون پر موجود ہر کسی کو بھیج دیں گے۔
Be afraid. Be very afraid of these apps. From BBC report
اہلخانہ کے مطابق سندیپ کورگاونکر نے 4 مئی کو خود کشی کر لی تھی اور اس کی وجہ یہ تھی کہ انھیں ان جعل ساز قرض خواہوں کی طرف سے دھمکیاں مل رہی تھیں اور انھیں ہراساں کیا جا رہا تھا۔
ان کے بھائی دتاتریہ کا کہنا ہے کہ سندیپ نے تو قرض بھی نہیں لیا تھا، اُنھوں نے صرف ایپ ڈاؤن لوڈ کی تھی۔
اس کے فوراً بعد ایجنٹس نے سندیپ کے ساتھ کام کرنے والے ان کے ساتھیوں کو فون کرنا شروع کر دیا اور بتایا کہ ان پر قرضہ ہے۔
انھوں نے سندیپ کی تصویر کے ساتھ چھیر چھاڑ کی اور ان کی عریاں تصاویر بنا کر ان کے 50 ساتھیوں کو بھیج دیں۔
دتاتریہ کہتے ہیں کہ پولیس میں شکایت درج کروانے کے بعد بھی ہراساں کرنے کا سلسلہ بند نہیں ہوا۔
وہ مزید کہتے ہیں کہ ’اس کی زندگی جیتے جی جہنم بن گئی
At first, I thought the original tweet was exaggerating about them scanning your phone but then I came across this. It turns out they are actually downloading data of the borrower and the government is aware of it.
The trick of the trade is
Meanwhile, our SECP instead of turning these fraudsters in especially in light of the BBC India report where such apps have destroyed families, is tweeting this
Also Barwaqt hides behind this standard tweet
There was this too
And this
Barwaqt is charging 25% per week. Bloody hell. What am I doing writing this substack probono? I should become an SECP approved loan shark.
Some of the Barwaqt ads
You can run your own search on Twitter but the modus operandi seems to be
Constantly advertise up to Rs.25,000 loans.
When people download apps, download the information from the user’s phone. Barwaqt admits to this in this tweet
The borrower may ask for Rs.25,000 for 90 days but they would say after running an analysis (going through your contact lists and other details), they will approve a much smaller amount for two weeks.
After 8 days, they start calling with threatening calls.
When people borrow from these apps, it isn’t as if they’ll have money promptly. There can be delays. In addition to charging late payment charges, they start calling your contact list.
Some say that they also register FIR against you. Must be hands in glove with police too.
May also be selling your data to data buyers.
Beyond comprehension how such loan sharking operations continue to be approved and allowed to be operated by SECP. SECP appears to be a toothless regulator if you ask me.
Who are people working at Barwaqt? Their website is thin on details. Never in my life I have seen management page of any company start with director HR. That’s the management as per website. No CEO. No other operational people.
Going through LinkedIn, I was able to find couple of people who left the company a few months ago.
Legal counsel. Probably that’s why FIR get registered so quickly.
2. Previous Financial controller who moved to Qisstpay 6 months ago
3. CEO till April 2022.
The parent company SeedCred has Abrar as the CEO joining two months ago. Prior to that, he was a consultant for IFC.
2. He is another notable person noted as consultant to SeedCred and IFC.
I don’t know what to tell you. SECP may know who is the management but on the internet, there isn’t a visible presence of the management and this, to me, makes the company a very shady outfit.
Two days ago I wrote the below post wherein again regulators, in this case mainly SBP, are letting us down.