By Waquar Hasan
In February this year, Mohammed Yusuf Alam, a labourer in Hyderabad, stumbled upon an advertisement about an interest-free loan while scrolling on Instagram. A form to apply for the loan was attached to the ad. He applied for a loan of one lakh rupees intending to build a house back in Godda district in Jharkhand from where he hails.
“I got a call from someone. Then I was contacted through WhatsApp. They asked for fee charges of 1,750 rupees,” he said. Over the next few days Alam got two calls asking him to pay 3,200 rupees.
“This is how it continued till they swindled around 40,000 rupees from me,” Alam told Decode.
It was a lot of money for Alam and he couldn’t just let it go. So he took a train from Hyderabad and travelled to Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) in Maharashtra where the bank Al-Khair Baitul Maal, that apparently gave him the loan, has been situated since 2002.
The Instagram advertisement was about this particular bank.
But when Alam reached the bank, he was told by the officials that what happened with him was a scam.
Al-Khair Baitul Maal is an Urban Co-operative Society which provides interest-free loans only to the residents of Aurangabad. They provide loans of up to 50,000 rupees on the condition of mortgaging gold. The loan is provided physically at the bank office. There is no online service for it.
However, all the ads that Decode found in Meta’s Ad Library say that they provide online loans. None of these scam ads are related to the bank in Aurangabad.
The Shady Ads
Decode found that Alam isn’t the only one who fell for this scam. Multiple advertisements run on Facebook and Instagram promising interest-free loans, and they all use this bank’s name.
This reporter tracked down dozens of fake pages, accounts and groups on Facebook and Instagram which run advertisements about interest-free loans violating Meta’s Advertising Standards which prohibits carrying any ads promoting scams.
These ads are garnering millions of views, reactions, shares and comments. All these pages and accounts are running only one ad which is an 8-year-old news report broadcast by the Zee News about Al-Khair Bank Baitul Maal.
Islamic Finance, a Facebook page which has 127 likes and 161 followers till 16 May, had around 1 lakh views, 10 thousand likes and 211 comments on its advertisement being run on the interest-free loan. The page, which was created on 3 January 2024, was running the same ad three times since April on Facebook and Instagram both. It was carried on 1 April, 30 April and 8 May 2024. The advertiser was described as a “business consultant”. In the comment section, several Facebook users point out the fraud and say that their money was swindled.
Another Page Al Khair Bank, which has only 3 likes and 4 followers, has been running the same ad since 8 April on Facebook and Instagram. The advertisement uses an old news video clip of the real Al-Khair Baitul Maal to promote the scam ads.
All of these pages are running the same 8-year-old report of Zee News on Al-Khair Bank as their ads giving a link to apply for the loan along with mobile numbers.
Even though the pages the ads are promoted on have only a few followers, the scam ads have thousands to lakhs of views.
Auranagabad’s Al-Khair Baitul Maal told Decode that they had also filed a complaint with Facebook last year when the scam had started. But the bank authorities said that action was not taken against this fraud by Meta. “We have been reporting these ads and pages on Facebook. Yet, they have been continuously running the advertisement,” a bank official told Decode.
While the advertising policy by Meta clearly states, “Our policies prohibit ads promoting products, services, schemes or offers using deceptive or misleading practices, including those meant to scam people out of money or personal information,” Decode found over hundreds of these pages using the same tactic to promote scam ads.
Decode has reached out to Meta for a response. The story will be updated if and when we get a response.
The Loan
A fake website for the bank also lists different kinds of loans, ethical banking, Sharia compliant banking and the prohibition of interest in Islam. It also put out an application form and mobile number to contact. The website lists the address of the original bank in Aurangabad.
This reporter, disguised as a person who was in need of a loan worth 5 lakh rupees, called the number 7749034169, listed on the website. A person who introduced himself as Afzal Ali picked up the call and asked the reporter to wait for someone else to contact him.
A few minutes later a man who introduced himself as Iqbal Khan called. He asked the reporter’s location, profession and how much loan he needed. The caller informed the reporter that around 8333 rupees will be the monthly EMI for five years.
When the caller was asked for more details of the bank, he said, “This loan is provided online. Its head branch is in Aurangabad…Your loan will get approved after you share your Aadhar card and PAN card. After getting approval, it will be credited directly to your account. You will have to pay fees of 1,750 rupees. Then, you can wait on call. The money will directly be credited to your account,” he explained.
The caller shared his Aadhaar card, employee identity card and PAN card.
The Aadhaar card that the caller shared had the address of Aurangabad’s Al-Khair Baitulmaal bank. However, Decode verified the Aadhar number on the government website, and it was found to be from Uttar Pradesh.
Crores Of Scams
Shaikh Naser, secretary at the Al-Khair Bank in Aurangabad, told Decode that the interest free loan fraud is going on for at least six months. Naser said that they get nearly 150 calls every day, either enquiring about the loan or reporting the scam.
A few days ago the bank received a call from a person who was duped of 6 lakh rupees. According to an estimate by the bank official, around 2 crores rupees have been swindled so far misusing the name of the bank.
“We have filed complaints with the local police station, cyber crime station and online home ministry portal. We also put out ads in the local newspapers warning about the fraud being committed in the name of his bank…but the administration is not taking action,” Naser told Decode.
The fraudsters, he said, have made fake identity cards using the name of employees who appeared in the Zee News report. “They have been doing this constantly. There are twenty mobile numbers of those fraudsters which the bank got,” he said.
Alam is also among them who filed a complaint with Aurangabad Police in February. But he said that he did not receive any response from the police after filing the complaint. Jintendra Prasad, who is from Bihar’s West Champaran, filed a complaint in Aurangabad in January alleging that he lost over 2 lakhs rupees in this scam.
When Decode contacted the cyber cell of Aurangabad police, the police official expressed his ignorance about the fraud and asked the reporter to approach the police of the area where the money is being credited to the bank.
“The complaint will be filed in the state from where they had credited money. The complaint can not be lodged in Aurangabad…the victim should file a complaint with the nearby cyber-cell of the police where he resides,” the police official said.
On pressing further, the police said that they did receive multiple complaints but no FIR has been filed.
When the police official was asked about the Aurangabad bank’s complaint with the cyber cell, he said that the action will be taken from the place where the fraudster is committing fraud. “Tell the bank to contact us again…if the bank has lost nothing, then there will be no FIR on its complaint. The ones who lost something can file an FIR,” he said.
Meanwhile, Alam, father of two children, said he had sent the money for getting the loan by taking money from his friends. “At last, I got worn out and told them that I don’t have any more money. They then told me that my loan got stuck in the RBI. I will have to give 15,000 rupees more to acquire it,” he said.
He said he was also being intimidated by the fraudsters about filing a case.
Alam, however, said that when he filed the complaint with Aurangabad police, he was told that there are many such complaints with the police with similar allegations.
The police told him that if any culprit is caught or any action is taken on his complaint, he will be informed. However, he hasn’t received any calls from the police. When asked if he approached his bank, he said that he did not because it wasn’t his bank’s fault and he transferred the money wilfully.
“Whatever happened happened. Now, I’m working to pay the debt,” said Alam.
