Kurar police files 11th FIR over harassment by loan recovery agents
Last Friday while she was at work, she received a message on her WhatsApp from JACK TRADER who demanded ₹2,000 from her as the interest on her loan amount
Mumbai: The police on Sunday registered an FIR after a 33-year-old beautician complained that loan recovery agents had been blackmailing her and threatening to send her morphed obscene photo to people on her contact list. The complainant, Deepika Mangesh Chavhan, is the 11th person to approach the Kurar police in the past three months complaining of harassment by recovery agents from loan apps.
According to the complaint filed by Chavhan, she was in need of urgent cash and was browsing through the internet when she came across an advertisement of the CASHe app on Facebook. When she downloaded the app, the display showed her AK Loan app which asked her to fill in certain personal and bank details and upload a photo along with her mobile number and email ID for verification.
“I did not ask for any loan amount and kept that part blank but soon after I filled the entire form and submitted it and went back to doing my daily chores, I received a message on my phone from my bank that an amount of ₹1,100 had been deposited in my bank account,” said her complaint.
Last Friday while she was at work, she received a message on her WhatsApp from JACK TRADER jimitmggori555@ksbi who demanded ₹2,000 from her as the interest on her loan amount. Chavhan, who did not want any trouble, agreed to pay the amount and transferred the amount to the sender’s account.
A few minutes later she was shocked to find ₹2,600 deposited in her account. On Saturday Chavhan was at home at 9.45 am when she received a call on her WhatsApp when the caller demanded ₹4,600 as repayment of her loan amount. The woman told the caller that she had not applied for any loan and blocked the number.
An hour later she received a call on WhatsApp again from a caller who threatened to spoil her image if she did not repay the loan. The caller told her that her photo will be sent to all the people on her contact list along with the image of her Aadhaar card and PAN card. When she refused to pay, the caller sent her a morphed image of her to make her realise that the threat was real. She then blocked that number too.
The complainant then approached the Kurar police and lodged a complaint against the unidentified loan app recovery agent. “We have registered an FIR based on her complaint and are tracing the four mobile numbers from which Chavhan got the threatening calls,” said a police officer from Kurar police station.
Since May 2022, the Kurar police have registered 10 similar cases after a 34-year-old committed suicide when he was being harassed by loan app agents, despite repeatedly telling them that he had not taken any loan compared to two each which have been registered at Cyber police station at BKC and Meghwadi.
Police stations like Bandra, Borivali, Byculla, Charkop, Chunabhatti, Dahisar, Ghatkopar, Goregaon, Govandi, MIDC, Oshiwara, Parksite, Powai, Samta Nagar, Vikhroli have registered one case each so far.