2022-08-02 | Awas Modus

Beware of Illegal Pinjol, These Are Its Characteristics

It is very important to always be careful of illegal online loan fraud modes. Usually, this fraud mode can ensnare victims with high-interest rates that are growing day by day, so there are many people trapped in this seemingly endless debt.

Pinjol is a financing service to meet various needs such as monthly shopping, electronics, or business capital. These loan services can help many people through loan funds to meet their daily needs.

However, you need to be more aware of the presence of illegal pinjol that can actually ensnare you with high-interest rates and terrorize you endlessly.

Learn the characteristics of the following illegal pinjol to help you avoid the disturbing risk of illegal loan services:

1. Not Registered with the Financial Services Authority (OJK)

The first step to finding out if the loan is trusted or not is to check its registered status with the OJK. You can check it by visiting the OJK official website and selecting the 'IKNB' (non-bank financial industry) menu, then selecting the 'fintech' submenu. The page will show a list of companies that are supervised by the OJK.

Legal 'pinjol' can be identified from the submission of the necessary requirements. On the other hand, the application requirements of illegal pinjol are usually very easy. Just using a telephone number and ID card, the loan can be immediately approved.

2. Promoting via SMS or WhatsApp

If you get an SMS in the form of a loan offer, you should not immediately be tempted. This is a feature of illegal 'pinjol' that needs to be watched out for because they usually imitate legal loans for victims to trust the offer.

You also need to be more careful to recognize bills that come from unknown phone numbers. This online loan mode is often using a legal loan's name to collect bills via SMS or WhatsApp.

3. Sky-high interest rates

Illegal 'pinjol' usually charges very high-interest rates, exceeding the maximum interest rate set by the Indonesian Joint Funding Fintech Association (AFPI).

4. Short loan terms

Generally, illegal pinjol also has a shorter loan term than legal pinjol. For example, the borrower is only given less than two weeks to repay the loan. In addition, the illegal pinjol often collects the repayment faster than the previously agreed tenor agreement.

5. Unclear management identity and office location

Legal lending institutions must have offices and call center services that are clear and easy to contact. However, illegal pinjol lists the location of an office whose whereabouts are not clear.

6. Illegally accessing personal data on the borrower's cellphone 

The main reason we need to be aware of illegal pinjol is that these lending services often access the borrower's personal data unilaterally including phone numbers, videos, photos, and other important data.

This data theft is often done to terrorize borrowers if they fail to pay. This is contrary to OJK regulations which require institutions to respect the privacy of borrowers. There are also cases of fraud that attack loan users with the lure that they will be given an increase in the loan ceiling, discounted loan interest, etc.

The methods of fraud are also increasingly diverse when they are using the loan service operator. Some use fake 'contact center' numbers or 'official SMS' so that potential victims are fooled, some are determined to use regular numbers but claim to be from the contact center.

The mode is for administrative reasons/data verification of the loan ceiling increase/loan interest discount process. They will ask for the ATM card number and OTP code which is sent via SMS to the victim's phone number.

7. Collecting payments without ethics

The loan collection process conducted by illegal pinjol is carried out by terrorizing the borrowers. They act without ethics and even use the services of debt collectors to threaten the borrowers.

Seeing this, it can be said that illegal pinjol can be harmful instead of providing the required funding solution.

BCA Personal Loan

Instead of using illegal online loans to borrow funds, you can use BCA Personal Loan products to meet all your needs. BCA Personal Loan is a loan without collateral that can be used to fulfill various customer needs, whose payment can be paid monthly. The loan ceilings also vary, starting from Rp5 million to Rp100 million.

The loan application is also easily supported by fast application processes on easy terms. You can get this loan by contacting Halo BCA or visiting the nearest BCA branch office.

For further information about BCA Personal Loan, click here.