MOSCOW, August 17The practice of issuing loans to third parties has become a common problem in Russia, especially among microcredit organizations; fraudsters use access to passport data to issue loans online, said the head of the Law and Order Center in Moscow and the Moscow Region, lawyer Alexander Khaminsky.
“Banks, and especially microcredit organizations, offer many credit products that are issued remotely, without visiting offices. Thus, unscrupulous individuals who have gained access to a person’s passport data can register a new SIM card in their name and issue a loan in their name,” the lawyer noted.
The problem is that victims of fraud often only learn about the debt at the stage of legal collection. This creates serious financial and legal consequences for the victims.
To avoid this, Khaminsky recommends being careful with your personal data, making notes on where exactly it was provided. In addition, he recommends periodically checking your credits. This can be done through the Unified Portal of State and Municipal Services (Gosuslugi) or the official website of the Bank of Russia, for this you need to send a request to the Central Catalog of Credit Histories.
«If you find out that there is a loan in your name that you did not take out, you must immediately submit a corresponding application to the credit institution and the police. However, most likely, in the end you will have to prove in court that the loan was taken out by third parties and provide evidence that you did not receive the funds,» the lawyer concluded.