SCAM: Residents in Our Building Received Fraudulent Calls from People Pretending to Represent IDFC Bank
My dad and a few others in our building recently started receiving calls from people pretending to be from IDFC First Bank. The callers claimed that a woman from our society had taken a loan and defaulted on the repayment. To make the story sound believable, the scammer mentioned names of a few residents from our building and said she had lent portions of the loan amount to us. According to him, once she recovered the money from us, she would repay the bank.
At first, I was furious at the woman, assuming she had shared our numbers without permission, and I was close to confronting her. But then I decided to handle it calmly and think things through.
I told the caller not to contact my dad anymore and to speak to me directly instead. That’s when he made a mistake, he messaged me on WhatsApp. I replied saying I would raise this issue within our housing society and get back to him in a few days.
The very next morning, he called my dad again. This time I confronted him properly and asked on what basis they were contacting my father regarding a loan he had never taken. As far as I know, banks can only contact the borrower, guarantor, or co-borrower — not random people.
I also told him to stop harassing my dad since he’s a senior citizen. His response was shocking. He threatened to pass my number to a “recovery team” and said I’d start receiving abusive calls. Within an hour, both my dad and I started getting abusive calls from multiple numbers.
I messaged him on WhatsApp asking on what authority he had shared my number and warned him that I would go to the police. That seemed to rattle him because he immediately started calling me repeatedly, but I didn’t answer.
The next day, I went to the police station. The police called the scammer and told him not to contact us again. They issued an NC (Non-Cognizable complaint) and advised us to approach the court. Later, when I spoke to lawyers, they said an NC is mostly ineffective in such cases and that an FIR would carry more weight. They also mentioned that these kinds of fraud recovery-call scams have become very common lately.
I also emailed the Regional Nodal Officer at IDFC Bank. They initially asked for the numbers from which we were receiving the calls and our numbers, but after that there was no meaningful response. I’m now considering escalating the matter to the Reserve Bank of India.
Honestly, the entire experience left me feeling that ordinary people in India get very little support when dealing with these fraudsters.
What happened next was even more bizarre. My dad and a few residents visited the local IDFC branch and spoke directly to the branch manager. It turned out the woman had no loan in her name at all. The branch manager called the scammer in front of them, and the scammer seemed completely caught off guard. After that, the calls finally stopped.
I even approached the cyber crime cell, but that experience was disappointing too. The lady constable casually told me to “abuse the scammer back.” I genuinely couldn’t believe that was the advice being given. The officer told me the purpose of this scam tactic is to exploit vulnerable people. Scammers may call multiple people from your locality, abuse them, and spread false stories about you. Their goal is to create social pressure and fear, so that others force the victim to repay at least a certain amount that they never even took.
The scammer identified himself as Nilesh Gaikwad which is not his real name and his number is - +91 91367 04996. I've attached relevant screenshots to this case.
I'm surprised police cannot do anything about these frauds happening in broad daylight. I was luckily that I picked dad's phone that day as I do not live with them.
