Did You Sign Up For That Debt Recovery Call?

If you opt to be a loan guarantor, lenders can recover the dues from you if the primary borrower defaults. But if you didn’t sign up and still got that call, here’s what may have gone wrong and what to do about it

- Aaron Varghese Charly

Gaurav Agarwal, a 38-year-old business owner based in Jorhat, Assam was stumped when he received a call from an agent asking him to make his employee settle the dues on a loan. Agarwal had no clue who this employee was and what loan he had taken. The agent, who claimed to be a representative of fintech company Cashe Finance, refused to listed to him and threatened him with consequences if he didn't "somehow" make the employee pay.

Feeling harassed, Gaurav sought the help of his Bengaluru-based elder brother Jitesh, who called back the agent on the same day and tried to reason with him but to no avail.

Then followed a barrage of calls to both the brothers from different agents, all claiming to be from Cashe Finance. Outlook Money has heard the recording of one of these calls. "The agent started harassing me as well when I called to enquire why he was bothering my brother," says Jitesh.

The next day, on March 28, 2023, the brothers filed a complaint with Cashe Finance regarding the unsolicited calls. Jitesh even posted his complaint on Twitter, tagging the Bengaluru Police.

About two weeks after they filed the complaint, Cashe Finance called Jitesh, and asked him to put their numbers on the do-not-disturb (DND) list.

Several weeks later, Gaurav found out that the loan was taken by one of his contractual employees.

When Outlook Money contacted Cashe Finance about the case in June, its chief communications officer Deepak Nair said, "We are concerned about what happened to this individual and would like to investigate this if this indeed originated from our end... We've had cases before which turned out to be false"