Fang Feiyang, a senior student in a Hunan province college was out of touch after borrowing over 500,000 yuan from 12 online peer-to-peer (p2p) lending platforms. He utilized 18 of his classmates personal IDs to borrow the money since last October.
Fang was said to be in Changsha, Hunan Province and was after a job opportunity in earlier October. He wrote a letter of commitment taking responsibility of all his debts before he left. The letter included all the details of his loans.
Many of his debts needed to be repaid almost immediately. His classmates who provided him information have also received payment reminders from multiple lending platforms.
Fang's phone has been turned off and nobody has been able to contact him, even his father.
Li kuan, Fang's classmate said "Fang came to me to borrow money last November. I gave my personal information to him and he borrowed over 4,000 yuan through an online lending platform in my name. After that, he still borrowed twice on the platform for 11,000 yuan in total with my IDs, but without my permission."
"I finally realized Fang used my ID to borrow money still many times after I received the payment reminder from the lending platform."
Wang Ming, another classmate of Fang, said Fang borrowed nearly 47,000 yuan with his ID. He did give Fang his ID card number, his photo, phone number, college name and his bank card's number the first time when Fang asked to borrow money. "It was very easy to register on the platform", said Wang.
As Fang couldn't be found, his classmates and the college director went to his family to inquire his whereabouts. His father did not know that Fang has acquired the money and had no idea where he was.
"I just heard that he played a gambling game online but I really have no idea what he exactly does with the money," Fang's father added.
Many of the students went to the police for help, but they could not file a case as many of them willingly gave their personal information to Fang.
Fang's father was not able to contact him and his family could not afford to cover the debts.
Fang has been suspended by his college.
China has seen dozens of online lending platform targeting college students popping up in recent years. They are usually called "campus debt" by the platforms.
The risk control of "campus debt" is difficult to regulate. Xue Benchuan, the CEO of an online lending company, said the students play the major role in the "campus debt". Students lack social experience, awareness of risk, personal credit and recognition on consequences. Some platforms can deliberately seek exorbitant profits from the students.
Shi Pengfeng, founder of an online lending platform, said improved techniques are needed to ensure identification and avoid loans under another's name. The standards of risk control need to be updated. In addition, colleges need to build awareness over financial knowledge, and personal information protection within their students to eliminate such accidents reoccurring.
