Pocket Kash, White Kash, Golden Kash, and OK Rupee are among the apps that Apple pulled from the store this week. The apps offered fast-track lending to consumers in India, climbing to the top 20 of the finance list on the App Store in recent weeks. But they also levied outrageously superfluous charges, according to hundreds of user reviews.
The lenders also employed downright unethical tactics to get the borrowers to pay back.
“I borrowed an amount in a helpless situation and […] a day before repayment due date I got some messages with my pic and my contacts in my phone saying that repay your loan otherwise they will inform our contacts that your not paying loan,” a user review from last month said.
The apps — whose developers had strange names and suspicious websites — were littered with hundreds of similar reviews, some sharing even more alarming threats that they allegedly received from the lenders.