We received a document (purported “MUDRA Loan Approval Letter”) on FACTLY WhatsApp Helpline to verify its authenticity.
When we looked on the internet, we found that a Facebook page with the name “Pradhanmantri Mudra Yojna” had also posted a similar letter with the description: “Government Approval Letter”. In the letters, it is mentioned that a processing fee/legal fee must be paid in order for the loan amount to be released. Let’s check the authenticity of the letters.
Claim: MUDRA loan approval letters requesting borrowers to pay legal fees/processing fees for loan disbursement.
Do: There are many inconsistencies and errors in the endorsement letters. Neither “Mudra Finance Private Limited” nor “Mudra Finance Limited” appears in the “List of partner institutions pre-selected to be partners of MUDRA”. Also, there is no “National Financial Corporation Act 1956”, which is mentioned in the letter. Therefore, the claim made in the message is FALSE.
Before checking the authenticity of the letters, let us understand PM MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) a little. On the website of the MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency), we can read that ‘the program was launched by the Prime Minister on April 8, 2015 to provide loans of up to 10 lakhs to non-farm and non-farm small/micro enterprises. These loans are classified as MUDRA loans under PMMY. These loans are provided by commercial banks, RRBs, small financial banks, MFIs and NBFCs. The borrower can approach any of the approved lending institutions or can apply online through this portal www.udyamimitra.in. Under the umbrella of PMMY, MUDRA has created three products namely “Shishu”, “Kishore” and “Tarun” to signify the growth/development stage and financing needs of the beneficiary micro-unit/entrepreneur and also provide a point of reference for the next phase of graduation/growth’. A detailed FACTLY article about the PMMY program can be read here.
Various people across the country received similar MUDRA loan approval letters bearing their respective names. Some of these letters can be seen here, here, here, here and here. There are many clues in the letters that suggest they are fake. Let’s look at each of them one by one.
Clue 1: different letterheads and watermarks
It can be seen that the header design varies in the letters. “EMI Finance” and “Mudra Loan” logos and watermarks are not consistent. Also, it can be seen in some letters that PMMY’s logo mentions “True Success Stories”, which are taken from the success stories page on the official MUDRA website.
Clue 2: Same signature – Different names
Clue 3: Approval Agencies
Neither “Mudra Finance Private Limited” nor “Mudra Finance Limited” appears in the “List of partner institutions pre-selected to be partners of MUDRA”. Also, there is no “National Financial Corporation Act 1956”, which is mentioned in the letter.
Clue 4: Same Loan Amount – Different Processing/Legal Fees
In one of the documents on the MUDRA site, we can read that ‘banks may consider charging an upfront fee in accordance with their internal guidelines. The initial fee/processing fee for Shishu loans is waived by most banks‘. For example, on the SBI website it can be seen that the processing fee is zero for Shishu and Kishore loans to MSE units and for Tarun loans it is 0.50% (plus applicable taxes) of the amount of the loan. But the processing fees shown in these letters are not uniform in the approval letters. For the same amount of loan, the fees given are different.
There are many other inconsistencies and grammatical errors in the letters, which are very rare in official bank letters. The account details given in the letters for processing/legal fee filing are different in each letter. Business addresses and hotline numbers are also not the same. Most of the phone numbers listed do not work. FACTLY (posing as a borrower who received a similar letter) was able to speak to someone on one of the phone numbers. The person on the phone requested that the mentioned amount (which he thinks will be repaid) be deposited into the indicated account number so that the loan amount can be disbursed.
The official website of ‘MUDRA’ is ‘https://www.mudra.org.in/’. But, in a letter, a website address – ‘www.financemudra.net’ is given, which is not working now. The archived version can be viewed here. In another letter there is a website – ‘http://mudrapmyojana.com/’. The phone number listed on the website is also invalid. Looking at the website on “who.is” it was found that the website was recently registered in May 2020 and the phone number given for website registration can be found on another website – “Tata Fianance” (another dodgy website which was registered recently in March 2020). It is therefore not a government site. The official website mentions that borrowers can apply online for MUDRA loans on the Udyamimitra portal.
In addition, many people across the country complained on social media that they received similar fake letters on WhatsApp. Some of them also paid huge sums and complained that they had been cheated. These complaint messages can be read here, here and here.
To sum up, these “MUDRA Loan Approval Letters” asking borrowers to pay processing fees/legal fees for loan disbursement are bogus.
Have you watched our new video?
