Mumbai. IDFC Bank deducted monthly installment (EMI) from a person for a loan which he had never taken. In this case, now a consumer court has directed the bank to pay a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to that person from Navi Mumbai.
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (Mumbai Suburban) held the bank guilty of deficiency in service and also asked it to return the EMI amount of Rs 5,676 along with interest to the customer. The Commission recently made available the order passed last month.
The complainant claimed that he came to know that the bank had deducted EMI from his account at its Panvel branch in February 2020 for a loan which he had not taken. On enquiry, the bank told the complainant that it had been sent an email informing him that it was an ECS payment. When the person went to the bank branch, he was given a loan account. However, when he logged in to his account, he found an expired voucher from e-commerce company Amazon.
The complainant alleged that IDFC Bank fraudulently sanctioned the loan without following mandatory procedures and without obtaining signatures. He claimed that the bank had illegally sanctioned a loan of Rs 20,000 for a tenure of 20 months with a monthly EMI of Rs 1,892 by misusing personal details. The commission said that the complainant’s correspondence with Amazon revealed that he had not received any amount from the bank for the voucher. The Consumer Commission said that this behavior of the bank is nothing but an unfair trade practice.
The Commission said that due to such illegal acts, the CIBIL score of the complainant got spoiled due to non-payment of EMI.
The Commission directed the bank to refund the deducted EMI along with interest to the complainant and pay him Rs 1 lakh as compensation for deficiency in service and mental and physical harassment within 60 days of receiving the order. The order also directed the bank to pay Rs 10,000 to the complainant towards the litigation cost and clean up the CIBIL records related to the complaint.