Female college students who borrowed from loan sharks, who require naked photos as collateral, are now scrambling for money to repay back their loans.
Besides the threat that their photos would be published, the other option is for the women to be sold as mistresses. China.org reported that the students who reneged on their loans are being marketed to be mistresses at the rate of 7,000 yuan a month.
Some of them, to meet the payments, are now searching for part-time jobs. Most of the naked loans pass through Jiedaibao, a peer-to-peer lending platform operated by JD Capital, a venture capital firm. Other platforms where the naked loans are arranged are QQ and WeChat, reported Aseantoday.com.
It is not only the college students who are threatened by the loan sharks. A researcher disclosed that the parents of the borrowers could receive blackmail messages and eventually the nude photos of their daughters.
But it seems some of the students brought the trouble to themselves, said a promoter of the naked loans, Xu Kai. He disclosed that most of the female college students who borrow are not in dire financial need but use the money to purchase the latest electronic gadgets.
For a naked IOU, the lender could extend up to a 30,000-yuan loan, with all proceeds enabled though Jiedaibao. The loan has a monthly interest rate of 20 percent and usually is in high demand during September when summer ends and a new academic school year starts.
Other than buying gadgets, the 17 female borrowers whose loans Xu facilitated used the money to pay for their dog’s treatment, begin a business and pay for an abortion.