A loan app is threatening you. Here is exactly what to do.

First, understand the trick

An illegal loan app has no legal way to recover money. It cannot take you to court because it is not a registered lender and its interest is not enforceable. So it uses the only weapon it has: your fear of shame. When you installed the app you gave it your contacts and photos. It now threatens to call your boss, your in-laws, your friends, or to send an edited photo to all of them. Everything it does is designed to make you pay before you think.

The moment you stop being afraid of the shame, the app has nothing. That is why step 2 below matters more than any helpline.

The steps, in order

1. Do not pay anything beyond what you actually receivedIf ₹10,000 was credited and you have already paid ₹10,000 back, you owe nothing. Paying more does not stop the calls; it marks you as someone who pays under pressure, and the demands go up. Do not install a second app to pay the first. That is how ₹10,000 becomes ₹3 lakh.
2. Tell your family and closest contacts today, before the app doesSay plainly: "I took a loan from a fraud app. They may call you or send fake pictures. Ignore and block them." It is a hard conversation. It is also the single thing that removes the app's power. Nearly every person who has come out of this says they wish they had done it on day one.
3. Save the evidenceScreenshots of the loan offer, the amount credited (bank statement), every demand, every threat, every call log, the app's name and the number it calls from. Put them in a folder. This is your complaint.
4. Cut the app offRevoke its permissions in phone settings (contacts, storage, SMS, camera), then uninstall it. Change your UPI PIN, banking passwords and email password. If the app had SMS access, assume it saw your OTPs.
5. Report itCall 1930 if there are active threats. File online at cybercrime.gov.in with your screenshots. Report the lender on RBI's Sachet portal. If someone threatens to come to your home, go to the local police station with your folder and ask for an FIR; harassment, extortion and circulating morphed images are offences under the IT Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
6. Block and don't engageBlock every number that calls. Do not argue, do not negotiate, do not send "please stop" messages that confirm the number is live. Warn contacts to do the same.
7. Check what you actually owe, if anythingIf the money came from an RBI-regulated lender using a legitimate app, you do owe the principal and the disclosed interest, and you should talk to their grievance officer about a repayment plan. If it was an unregistered app, there is no enforceable contract. When unsure, ask a lawyer or the district legal services authority, which gives free help.

Your rights under RBI's rules

These apply to any app connected to a regulated bank or NBFC, and they tell you what a real lender may and may not do.

• You must be shown a Key Fact Statement with the total cost of the loan as an annual percentage rate before you sign.
• The loan must be credited directly from the regulated entity's bank account to yours; no third-party pool accounts.
• The app may only ask for phone permissions it genuinely needs, with your consent, and cannot demand access to your contacts, photos, call logs or media.
• You are entitled to a cooling-off period to exit the loan by repaying the principal and proportionate interest, without penalty.
• Every lender must publish a grievance officer's name and contact, and you can escalate unresolved complaints to the RBI Ombudsman.
• Recovery agents may not threaten, abuse, call at odd hours, or contact people other than you.

Since July 2025 the RBI also publishes a directory of Digital Lending Apps run by regulated entities. If the app that is threatening you is not on it, it was never a lender.

If the pressure feels unbearable

Afterwards: make sure it never happens again

The app found you because a gap opened between an expense and your cash. The lasting fix is a small emergency fund in a separate account that fills automatically each month. Here is how to build one starting with ₹500. And if you own gold, know that a bank gold loan at around 10% a year would have cost a fraction of what the app charged.