A ‘Realme’ smartphone user has claimed that she fell victim to scammers, who are believed to have gained access to her personal data through the ‘Fineasy’ loan application, which came pre-installed on her phone.
The victim, whose identity is being kept confidential, told Thai PBS that she bought a ‘Realme’ smartphone, with the ‘Fineasy’ loan application preinstalled, for about 6,000 baht.
One day, she received a message about a loan service and decided to apply for a loan via the ‘Fineasy’ app, believing it to be legitimate. The app offered loans ranging from 1,000-5,000 baht.
She said that she provided her personal information, including her name and the number of her bank account, adding that, before she filled in the amount of loan she required, she received a message confirming that 3,550 baht had been wired into her account.
Seven days later, she received a notification, via her smartphone, demanding 4,615.86 baht in repayment, adding that this meant she was charged 1,065.28 baht (30%) interest on a 3,550 baht loan for seven days.
The victim also said that, since January 9th, there have been reports that the “Fineasy” app may not be legal, so she decided to remove the application from her phone.
She then tried to download the application again, to repay the loan, but could not find it. She did receive a message, plus a QR code, from the unidentified lender, advising her to repay her loan plus interest in two instalments. She refused to scan the QR code.
The victim then received more calls from the lender demanding repayment, but she insisted that she would repay only through the application.
More calls were received, but this time from a third party, she said, adding that she checked with the ‘Whoscall’ app and discovered that the calls came from scammers and the QR code that she was told to scan came from the ‘K Shop’ application of a commercial bank, but the numbers for the acceptance of repayment constantly change.
