Accused sought victim's personal documents from IDBI bank's Pune branch after the latter submitted them for a home loan. They, then, procured credit cards in his name and ran up bills in lakhs
Do not forget to collect your documents from bank loan agents if your application gets rejected. If you don’t, there are chances that credit card recovery agents will land up at your doorstep to recover the money that you have never spent.
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Chintan Shah, President of Suzlon Energy Limited, recently learnt this lesson the hard way when he forgot to collect his signed documents from a bank loan agent. Shah, who is based in Pune, was stunned to know that the documents had been misused to buy credit cards in his name. He registered a complaint at Mundwa police station and two people have been recently arrested in this case.
The victim Chintan Shah
A game of cards
According to Shah, he had applied for a home loan in October 2013. He had handed over photocopies of his personal documents, attesting it with his signatures. “The said documents were used by the accused to procure credit cards from several banks including ICICI, Industrial and Citi Bank. Citibank and ICICI Bank had even issued the cards. But the Industrial Bank’s manager knew me, so he contacted me directly and then cancelled the card appeal. The accused had spent around Rs 5.5 lakh using the Citibank card and Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 using the ICICI Bank card. ICICI bank officials even came to my residence to recover the money in February this year. It was then that they learnt about the forgery,” added Shah.
Later on June 7, Shah was shocked when a Citibank officer Zuber Khan visited him to inform him that a Citibank Card has been issued in his name from Mundwa-Koregaon Park Road branch in Pune. The executive showed him the documents on the basis of which the card was issued.
The accused had tampered with the address, phone number and Shah’s photographs to procure the cards.
How the accused were held
Further inquiries revealed that the accused had procured similar cards from ICICI bank and they had done some shopping. The arrested persons have been identified as Chandrashekar Gaikwad (29) and his friend Bhairavnath Salunke (26), both residents of Mundhwa. Both are postgraduates and former employees of a bank that collects documents from citizens for home loans.
At present, they work at an event management company. They were nabbed after their faces were captured in CCTV cameras at the shops from where they had bought goods with the credit cards.
Shah further said, “My salary slip and Pan Card details were leaked from the home loan processing unit of the IDBI bank when I had applied for the home loan.” Allegedly the culprits confessed to the cops that they contacted someone from the bank to procure Shah's details. When Sunday mid-day contacted Vikram Bhide, branch manager of IDBI bank, he said, “We are conducting an internal inquiry to find out who passed on crucial information to the duo.”
Senior police inspector S Pathan Mundawa police station said, “The two accused are in our custody. We will also interrogate IDBI bank officials.”
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