Earlier this week, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported that private lenders in China were asking young women to send naked photos of themselves as a form of collateral. The lenders also asked them to send in copies of their photo ID cards. They warned the women that the pictures would be made public if they didn’t make their payments on time.
One borrower told the newspaper that she turned to an online loan provider and received $76 from them. The weekly interest rate was 30 percent, but she had to keep paying off the old loans with new loans. Eventually, her debt swelled to $8,347 and the lender told her to send a naked photo of herself as a way to guarantee the new loans.
Apparently, the woman wasn’t the first person to have experienced this. She said many classmates of her got caught up in the scheme, but they didn’t want to speak up about it.
The newspaper reported that the woman was planning on reporting the incident to authorities. A reporter from the paper got evidence of what the loan sharks were doing by joining online chat groups that are frequented by lenders.
After the story was published, the practice of demanding nude photos were suspended.
