Need genuine help from people who survived payday loan/app loan debt traps in India- Total loan of 50 lakh+
My husband and I are completely trapped in debt and genuinely need guidance from people who have survived something similar.
We got married in 2023 and started a happy middle-class life with a lot of dreams. My husband was good at trading and initially made decent passive income from the market. But as everyone knows, markets can be brutal. Losses started happening and in the hope of recovering them, more trades were taken which unfortunately led to even bigger losses.
To recover from those losses and continue living a normal life, we slowly started taking loans. At first it felt manageable, but eventually the EMIs became unbearable.
Around the same time, due to some existing debts in the family, our house had to be mortgaged. That gave temporary relief but added another EMI burden on top of everything else. We somehow stretched through another year trying to survive.
Then in October 2025, my husband became jobless. What we thought would be a short gap turned into almost 5+ months without income, eventually extending till March 2026. During that phase, the only stable income was my ₹68k salary, which was nowhere near enough for Bangalore rent, household expenses, existing EMIs, and survival.
That is when we made the biggest mistake of our lives — payday loans and instant loan apps. We kept taking new loans hoping that once he got a job, we would clear everything.
Thankfully, he now has a good job with around ₹1.48L monthly income, but by the time that happened we had already fallen into a massive debt trap:
- Around ₹26 lakh in payday/app loan repayment burden
- Around ₹30 lakh total including bank loans and EMIs
Now the situation has become unbearable.
Nobody is really able to help because the amount has become too huge for a middle-class family. Harassment calls and threats are constant. We are unable to sleep properly or focus on work anymore.
Last year my mother-in-law also underwent heart surgery, so we had already taken loans against gold and whatever assets we had. At this point, there are basically no assets left.
We contacted multiple debt relief/settlement companies. Every company has some condition which is beyond our capacity:
- Some ask us to deposit money into their accounts for months before they negotiate
- Some do not deal with payday loans at all
- Some only handle RBI-registered apps, which means out of 26 payday loans, only 4–5 would even be covered
- Most say they will intervene only after defaults become severe
We also asked friends for temporary help, but understandably nobody wants to lend ₹10–12 lakhs when our situation already looks unstable.
Both families are trying to think of solutions. My brothers are exploring a top-up home loan possibility, but nothing is confirmed yet. Meanwhile the stress is affecting everyone badly. My father and mother-in-law are heart patients, and seeing all this pressure is mentally breaking me.
I am not posting this for sympathy. I am posting because I genuinely want advice from people who have:
- survived payday loan traps,
- handled loan app harassment,
- gone through settlements,
- managed multiple defaults,
- or found a structured way out.
What should be the first practical step now?
Which loans should we prioritize?
Are there any genuinely trustworthy debt consultants in India who actually help with payday loans too?
How do people mentally survive this phase?
Any real guidance would mean a lot right now.