Pune: Crook uses techie’s PAN to get credit card, spends Rs 5 lakh

PUNE: A 40-year-old software engineer from Hinjewadi has registered a complaint with the Wakad police on Monday night, claiming that fraudsters misused his PAN details to obtain a credit card in his name from a nationalized bank and made purchases worth Rs 5 lakh.
According to the complainant, Lokesh D’mello, the fraud occurred between September and December 2019.
To D’mello’s knowledge, no other documents — such as address proof — were submitted, and no physical verification was carried out before the card was issued. Police said they would seek these details from the public sector bank in question.
The fraud came to light after D’mello started receiving phone calls from bank representatives, asking him to clear the credit card dues.
Once he realized about the fraud, D’mello visited the bank and submitted a complaint stating that he did not apply for the card. The bank then blocked the card, but he continued to get calls to pay the bill, police said, adding that D’mello found that his name and PAN details were on the credit card documents, but the photograph and signature belonged to someone else.
In July this year, D’mello filed a complaint application with the Pimpri Chinchwad police, who transferred it to the Wakad police station, who then registered an FIR on Monday.
“We will plan the probe after receiving details from the bank,” senior inspector Vivek Muglikar said.