“Once a user gets a loan through the app, they are bound to high-interest payments, and regularly harassed and blackmailed by the operators using the data stolen from their phones.”
McAfee found 15 fake loan apps on Google Play with over 8 million installs, aimed at Mexico, Colombia, Thailand, Indonesia and Senegal. They harvest contacts, SMS, call logs, camera and location, then use it to extort borrowers and call their families. Google ran the last big SpyLoan cleanup in December 2023 after 12 million downloads. Twelve months later the same scam was back in the same store, past the same app review.