Google Cracks Down on Predatory Loan Apps (ft.com) 12
Google is cracking down on predatory loan apps by cutting off their access to "sensitive" data including debtors' contacts, photos and location, after growing criticism that unscrupulous lenders are tapping the contents of borrowers' smartphones for harassment and blackmail. From a report: The tech company said on Wednesday it would update policies for financial services apps listed on the Google Play store at the end of May, so that "apps aiming to provide or facilitate personal loans may not access user contacts or photos." Details provided to app developers for Google's Android mobile system also show that lending apps will, for the first time, be restricted from requesting access to users' precise location, phone numbers and videos. The new policy covers apps offering personal, payday and peer-to-peer loans, but not mortgages, car loans or credit cards. Studies have found hundreds of apps available through Google Play that have required prospective customers to grant them access to the most intimate information on their devices in order to proceed with an application. Consent is often obtained on the grounds that these details are needed to conduct a credit check or risk assessment.
Google Pay Later (Score:2)
Bruh (Score:1)
These lenders are the worst (Score:4, Interesting)
Predatory lenders such as payday and title loan providers play the worst games to take advantage of their victims. Denying them excessive permissions in an application is a good step forward.
Got to wonder, however, if these are not also violations of various FCRB, FTC, TIL, and other laws and regulations. These predators skirt legality and avoid outright criminality with clever terns and practices, but ought not be permitted to.
Anyways, the common victims are 'unbanked', and often naïve in financial matters, and deserve some protection, though I cannot guess what would be helpful.
Re: (Score:2)
the common victims are 'unbanked', and often naÃve in financial matters, and deserve some protection, though I cannot guess what would be helpful.
Well, first we start by going after the predatory banks. For example BofA, Wells Fargo, and Westamerica all played that trick on me where they process withdrawals immediately, but deposits very slowly, and then they don't treat the deposit as if it was made at the time at which it was made. Result, overdraft, which they can then charge money for. How's about we make overdraft fees illegal? Just don't process the fucking payment. Also, once upon a time overdraft protection meant you paid nothing, overdrafts
Re: These lenders are the worst (Score:2)
You have valid complaints, and banking practices ought to be more carefully. Scrutinized. Wells, for instance should have had another zero added to their most recent find and maybe the first two before that. But this post is really about predatory lending, which some banks have engaged in, but mostly we're seeing this in the so-called specialty lenders and that's where there is so much offensively criminal activity going on that is allowed. Most of your complaints, being business practices, are going to req
Easily gotten around... (Score:2)
Easy to get around. Require the user to download an app from a second app maker which does the data harvesting, while the loan app can be something that has almost no permissions needed. The second app can be something that is generically named, or perhaps "sponsored" by the loan app maker, and is a must to have in order to use the loan app.
I have read about some of the offshore loan apps, and how they do prey on people who may not have a checking account. Because they are offshore, debt collection acts
To be unfriended (Score:2)
If you're willing to send your friends' details for a little cash, then you deserve to be harassed by friends (and unfriended) when pay-day lenders go after them.