PUNE: A 35-year-old Sus resident recently discovered that he was the victim of possible identity theft — someone had used his government-issued documents to avail themselves of multiple loans totalling Rs 8.22 lakh.
On April 16, the man got a phone call from a person — supposedly from a private finance firm in Vimannagar — who wanted to know if he had applied for a personal loan from the firm.
“I had told him about my home loan [with a bank], when he said I had taken a personal loan from his company.
When he told me my PAN and asked for an OTP, I disconnected the call,” the man, who has since lodged a police complaint, told TOI.
The following day, the man contacted the firm.
“The woman who answered the call told me there was no loan linked to my mobile number.
When I gave her my PAN, she said a loan of Rs 1.4 lakh was taken using my details,” the complainant The man spoke to his wife, a bank employee, who helped him check his credit score.
They found that someone used his Aadhaar and PAN to take loans ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 2.89 lakh from nine private firms in Pune, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, and New Delhi between February 3 and 10 this year.
The complainant immediately approached the Hinjewadi police, who directed him to the cybercrime cell.
“I was given an email address to file a complaint.
The next day, I took a copy of the email to the police station and submitted a complaint application,” he said.
“I managed to find the email addresses of six financial firms.
I emailed them, but only two responded,” he said.
One firm emailed him copies of the Aadhaar and PAN submitted for the loan.
“In both cases, the fraudster had submitted my Aadhaar and PAN details with someone else’s photograph,” the complainant said.
The complainant later made a video call to one firm in the presence of the police.
“An official told me that they had sanctioned the loan though video KYC and that the person who had applied was someone else,” he said.
The Hinjewadi police registered an FIR on Wednesday.
“I have even filed a complaint with the consumer court,” the complainant said.
Sub-inspector Govind Pawar said the police traced the fraudster to Kolkata.
“We found that the suspect transferred Rs 3 lakh to a private bank account in Kolkata.
We are trying to ascertain how the fraudster got hold of these documents,” Pawar said.
A case has been registered under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 468, 469 and 470 (forgery).