Fraudsters have a field day in city

Hyderabad: Fraudsters are duping gullible people to the tune of lakhs of rupees by luring the victims by means of offering to provide loans.

The fraudsters are even claiming that a team of officials from their head office will arrive by air to inspect the property against which loan was being provided to make the victims believe the blatant lies.

This method of cheating came to light when a victim from Hyderabad lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime wing of the city police.

The victim, S Anand said in his complaint that he found an advertisement in a regional language newspaper a few months ago which boasted on providing housing loans.

When he called upon the phone numbers mentioned in the advertisement, one Sapan Singh, claiming to be the employee of Max Finance answered his call.

Anand informed Sapan Singh over phone that he was in need of housing loan of Rs 12 lakh. Sapan Singh assured Anand that the loan would be provided but certain documentation needs to be done.

Accordingly, Anand was asked to deposit Rs 1500 towards documentation and Rs 1.2 lakh towards advance income tax later.

And it did not stop there, Sapan Singh convinced Anand into depositing Rs 22,600 towards insurance premium in case of some untoward incident so as to have a security for the loan being given.

Further, he was made to pay Rs 60,000 towards the air fares for a six-member team of the Finance Company that would arrive at Hyderabad from Mumbai and fly back after inspecting the property on which the house would be constructed with the money borrowed.

However, the inspection team never came to Anand and Sapan Singh had an instant excuse for this. He told the victim that the team could not come due to demonetization.

But he was able to extract another Rs12,500 from Anand in the name of emergency security for miscellaneous expenses. Later, Sapan Singh sent a notary attested paper comprising the rules and conditions of the loan and for that document, Anand had to pay another Rs 7,200.

Finally, Anand has sent another Rs 25,000 on the instructions of Sapan Singh to get the cheque released.

The victim was asked by the fraudster to wait till January 2017 for the inspection team to visit Hyderabad and complete the inspection so that the loan could be released.

However, since January, Sapan Singh was out of contact as his mobile phones were switched off. It was only then Anand realised that he had been duped and lodged a complaint with the police.

Police sources said that these kinds of frauds are on the rise. Mostly educated people are falling prey to such frauds. Its time people act smart before paying money to unknown persons for any reason, the sources said.