Seeking the help of a leading search engine to get contact details of banks for a personal loan proved costly for a city-based software engineer, who lost her business venture saving of Rs53,000 to a conman.
The victim, Nafisa Parveen, who is a software engineer in IDS Software Solutions in RT Nagar, called the service on November 11, 2011.
“We’re planning to apply for a loan of `20 lakh to start a primary school with my husband (Fakruddin) in the area and hence called up the telephone provider’s services to get the information on banks which are offering loans,” Nafisa said in her complaint.
Though the couple was provided with a few numbers from the service provider, it did not help them. On January 3, Nafisa got a call on her mobile from a person who identified himself as Venkatesh, manager of the credit section of an international bank.
Venkatesh told Nafisa that he got her number from the service provider and assured all help for her dream project. He then took her personal details. He said the bank’s executive would come to collect the relevant documents and the loan would be sanctioned in a few days.
The executive, who identified himself as Kiran, visited her office one day and took the relevant papers, including five blank cheques signed by her as part of surety and crediting loan amount in the bank account.
Relieved, Nafisa told her husband what happened and they began counting the days to get the loan amount in hand.
When there was no response after a few days, Nafisa got suspicious and went to the bank to check about the progress of her request.
To her shock, the bank officials told her the bank did not have an employee named Venkatesh. Then came another jolt: An SMS alert from her bank said `53,000 had
been withdrawn from her account.
She rushed to the bank and found that the amount was withdrawn using two of the five cheque leaves she had given to Venkatesh.
She called Venkatesh, who politely said he had withdrawn the amount towards ‘service charge’ as per the deal. Nafisa told him she had learnt that he was was not an employee of the bank.
However, Venkatesh said he was working in another branch of the bank. He then disconnected the call. “Since then, he is avoiding my call,” said Nafisa.
Nafisa revisited the bank, seeking help to file a police complaint but the bank officials turned down her request, saying they had
nothing to do with her problem.
‘How was my number leaked?’
“I’m sure there is a mole in the bank or the service provider from where Venkatesh got my contact details. Otherwise, there is no way he could have approached me,” Nafisa said in her complaint.
When DNA contacted the service provider for clarification, they said nobody by the name of Nafisa had called them.
“As per procedure, we check the background of the company that register with us. We pass on the number of the callers to seven companies who register with us,” a representative of the service provider said.
She added: “The system is foolproof and there is no chance that the data could have leaked to unconcerned parties.”
Fakruddin, yet to recover from the shock, said: “We believe that everyone, including the bank, has made a fool of us.”
“Now, all I want is that police should catch these people and make sure such things don’t happen with other people,” he said.
RT Nagar inspector Poovaiah hoped that the arrest of those involved might reveal the possible involvement of other agencies in the case.
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