Mumbai: Man tricked into taking Rs 4,800 loan, ends up paying Rs 3.6 lakh to loan sharks

A 25-year-old man who had installed a loan providing application on his mobile phone, after which, without making any request for a loan, a loan of Rs 4,800 got credit in his bank account.

A week later, the victim was asked to pay double the money for having taken the loan and was threatened that if he would not pay the loan, messages defaming him would be sent to those on his contact list.

In a span of one month, the victim ended up paying Rs 3.67 lakh to the loan sharks and when he uninstalled the application from his phone, they defamatory messages to the victim's relatives about him.

According to the police, the complainant runs a grocery store near Panvel. As per the victim, on December 7, 2021, while surfing on the internet he came across a loan providing mobile application.

"When the victim clicked on the advertisement of the application, it got downloaded on his phone. The victim shared his bank account details on the application and after allowing all permissions for the settings, the application got activated on his phone. However, the victim was surprised as he got a loan amount of Rs 4,800 credited in his bank account within 15 minutes, without having made any loan request," said a police officer.

"On December 15, the victim received a phone from an unknown man who told him that he would have to pay Rs 8,056 in return for the loan taken. The caller told the victim to make the payment on the link sent on WhatsApp. The victim made the payment through the sent link. Since then, the victim kept receiving threatening messages forcing him to make more payments and the victim ended up paying Rs 3.67 lakh till January 25. Harassed with persistent demand for money, the victim formatted his phone and uninstalled the application from his phone," the officer said.

The victim then learnt that abusive messages were being sent in his name to his relatives by the loan shark after which he got a police complaint registered in the matter.