Mumbai: Man lodges cop complaint after facing harassment from loan recovery agents

A 32-year-old man who works as a senior analyst with a private company in Goregaon has lodged a complaint with the police against recovery agents acting on behalf of a finance company for allegedly using coercive ways to recover money.

According to the Arnala police, the Virar resident victim had downloaded a loan app on his phone and had given necessary access to his phone while registering on the app. The victim had also shared his Aadhar card, PAN card and photograph on the said app.

The victim had used Rs 37600 money on credit but since financial condition had been weak since April this year, the victim was unable to repay the loan. From May onwards, the victim started receiving phone calls from the recovery agents. The victim tried to explain his problem, but the recovery agents kept using abusive language with the victim, threatening him to make the payment.

The fraudsters then shared photographs of the victim with derogatory comments that the victim is a fraud and had also committed a sexual crime and had gone into hiding, with the relatives and friends in the contact list of the victim. The fraudsters also morphed a photograph of the victim in an obscene manner and shared the said photograph as well, police said.

Harassed by this, the victim approached the police and got a complaint lodged in the matter. The police have registered a case under sections 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation), 500 (defamation), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, sections 66 (computer-related offences), 66C (identity theft) and 66E (violation of privacy) of the Information Technology Act.

The victim has shared four mobile numbers that were used by the loan recovery agents to issue threats to the victim and the police are trying to get details of these numbers to trace the suspects.