Du Xiaoman Faces Allegations of Harassing Emergency Contacts

TapTechNews May 17th news, earlier this month, a netizen claimed that he was frequently harassed by phone calls from Du Xiaoman. Du Xiaoman responded that it was a friend of his who borrowed money and set him as the emergency contact. However, he said that he had very little contact with this friend usually, and there was no reason for the other party to set him as the emergency contact. So he suspected that Du Xiaoman App obtained the contact list of this friend from the background and contacted them one by one.

In addition, hashtags like #FemaleCelebrityBecomesEmergencyContactforDuXiaomanLoan# and #DuXiaomanRespondsToHarassingEmergencyContactsofBorrowers# have also continuously appeared on social media hot search in these days, with a reading volume of over 30 million and tens of thousands of complaints pointing to its collection behaviors such as SMS bombing and phone harassment. Lawyers said that the platform's move is suspected of being illegal, and the infringed person can report to the relevant departments or file a lawsuit.

Du Xiaoman is an Internet financial platform under Baidu, originally Baidu Finance, which was officially established in May 2018 and mainly engages in credit, wealth management and other businesses.

Regarding this, some netizens said: When borrowing from Du Xiaoman, the borrower can simply fill in an emergency contact phone number without the need for official confirmation, but once the money cannot be repaid (or the person cannot be found), the number of this 'emergency contact' will be bombarded, regardless of whether the owner of this number knows the borrower.

TapTechNews found that Taiwan, China actress and singer Liu Leyan once posted a video on social media last year complaining that she was directly harassed by phone calls from a debt collection company called Du Xiaoman, 'Calling from morning to night. I'm really sad.'

In response, Phoenix Net Finance Bank Caiyan called the official hotline of Du Xiaoman as a loan customer for verification. The other party said, 'The borrower filled in the name and phone number of the emergency contact, and there is no need to confirm with the emergency contact during the process.'

In addition, recently, some netizens also posted on social media, 'I have been frequently harassed by Xiaoman calls recently, with both landline and mobile phone numbers. Said a friend borrowed from Xiaoman and I left an emergency contact. The problem is that I seldom contact this friend usually. How can I be regarded as an emergency contact? I guess the App uploaded the contact list in the background and then called one by one?'

Regarding 'What to do if being set as a loan emergency contact by an unfamiliar colleague or friend', the customer service of Du Xiaoman said: The credit customer service hotline cannot see the relevant emergency contact information. If you want to change it, the borrower can only change it on the Du Xiaoman App.

As for 'Whether to call the emergency contact after the loan is overdue', the customer service of Du Xiaoman said, 'We have a credit customer service hotline here, and the post-loan collection personnel are in two departments, so we don't know much about the post-loan related issues, but it will be carried out within the scope of compliance.'

It is worth noting that the 'Ad ministrative Measures for Consumer Finance Companies' issued by the National Financial Regulatory Administration has been officially implemented on April 18th, which stipulates: Consumer finance companies shall not use improper means such as violence, threat, intimidation, and harassment for collection, and shall not collect from a third party unrelated to the debt..