Shocking! Sunny Leone PAN card details used for fraud; what you can do to avoid identity theft

Actress Sunny Leone PAN card details have been misused in a loan fraud. The actress took to Twitter to reveal the shocking crime. In the tweet about the misuse of her PAN card details, Sunny Leone alleged that her identity has been used to acquire a loan of ₹2,000 and that this has affected her credit score. Informing about the same, Sunny Leone tweeted, "This just happened to me. INSANE. Some idiot used my Pan to take a Rs. 2000 loan and affected my CIBIL score (sic)." Even though she deleted the tweet later, but The Print report mentions that she tagged Indiabulls Securities Limited while asking how the company allowed this to happen. It is not known whether a glitch on fintech platform Dhani Stocks Limited (which was earlier Indiabulls Securities) was responsible for it, or some other reason caused Sunny Leone identity theft to happen. The company is yet to issue a statement. For the common man, this can be a big problem as the PAN card details can be misused online.

Sunny Leone however, later took to Twitter again to tweet a thank you note after the issue was seemingly resolved. In her response, she thanked IndiaBulls Securities, "Thank you IndiaBulls Security, IndiaBulls Home Loans, and TransUnion CIBIL for swiftly fixing this & making sure it will NEVER happen again. I know you will take care of all the others who have issues to avoid this in the future. NO ONE WANTS TO DEAL WITH A BAD CIBIL!!! I'm referring to my previous post (sic).”

There are more victims…

Sunny Leone is not the only victim, as several people have taken to Twitter to complain about the misuse of their PAN cards through Indiabulls-owned fintech startup Dhani that disbursed loans on their PAN cards to third parties without their knowledge. These loans are now listed as defaults on the impacted individuals' CIBIL credit reports, and some of them are also receiving show-cause notices in addition to receiving calls from collection agents. The majority of these transfers are also believed to have occurred in Dhani e-wallets rather than bank accounts.

Read Sunny Leone tweet below:

Reuters India journalist Aditya Kalra has also raised the same issue a few days back on Twitter. He said that a loan was disbursed by IndiaBulls Finance Dhani Cares with his PAN card number, name, and address in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Not just that, he tagged a number of other users in the same Tweet thread who reported about the same loan disbursing issue by Dhani.

Read Aditya Kalra tweet below:

Dhani is owned by the Indiabulls Group which offers services such as credit for necessary purchases like groceries, stock brokerage, and a credit card with a credit limit of ₹5 lakh. Dhani also runs an e-commerce site where it sells medicine, stationery and more.

What if you are also a victim

If you have also faced such an issue with your PAN card details being misused for disbursal of loans without your knowledge, then immediately contact IndiaBulls Finance or fintech Dhani before your CIBIL score is affected.

If you do not want to get caught up in a web of deceit concerning your PAN card details, then you should share this information only where absolutely necessary for big transactions and not anywhere else. In places that you have verified thoroughly. Whenever you share your details online or offline, for small ticket purchases, the chances of the details getting into the hands of unscrupulous people are high.

While finding out if your PAN card details have been misused is tough, you could keep regularly checking your CIBIL score and track changes there. It is very much available online.

However, unfortunately, and most probably, the first time you will get to know about it is when the taxman comes knocking, asking unpleasant questions. Or, even worse, when recovery agents call you on the phone, or email you, asking you to pay back the money.