BEIJING — Online loan sharks in China have come upon a new way of guaranteeing loans from female coeds in need of some cash: demanding nude photos. <br /> <br />According to the state-run Southern Metropolis Daily, web-based lenders are asking the college students to send nude photos of themselves as a form of collateral, along with copies of their ID cards. <br /> <br />They are threatened that if payments are not made on time, the photos will be made public. <br /> <br />One of the women told the paper that she first borrowed 500 yuan ($76) from a loan shark with a 30 percent weekly interest rate. She was forced to take out new loans to pay off the old ones, and her debt ballooned into 55,000 yuan ($8,437) when the lender demanded a nude pic of her as a guarantee for new loans. <br /> <br />The woman said several of her female classmates had also been caught up in the scheme but didn’t want to speak out. <br /> <br />The newspaper claims that loan sharks suspended the practice after it published a story on the practice.
