VADODARA: He wanted to save Rs 500 annual fee on his credit card.

But a city-based pharmacist ended up being fleeced of lakhs of rupees by a cyber fraud gang.

As a result, the victim Rajesh Rathwa is now left with a loan of over Rs 6.20 lakh that he never applied for.Rathwa, who lives in Bhayali, filed a complaint at the Taluka police station against unidentified persons.

Rathwa had received a call for a credit card from Axis Bank some time ago.

He accepted the offer and the card was sent to his house through courier.

But Rathwa didn't activate the card as it had an annual fee of Rs 500.

On April 15, he got a call from a man who introduced himself as Saurabh Sharma and claimed to be an employee of Axis Bank.

The caller asked Rathwa why he hadn't activated his credit card.

Rathwa told him that he did not do so as the annual charge of Rs 500 was too high.

The caller told Rathwa that he could activate the card for free, took some details and also asked for a gmail verification update.Rathwa told the caller that he would use the card if it is activated for free.

As soon as he shared the card and bank details, about Rs 6.20 lakh was deposited in his account in three instalments.

He was surprised and inquired about it with the fraud caller who said that the money may have been deposited due to some banking error.The fraudster told Rathwa that he would get the loan cancelled, and within some hours, Rs 4.89 lakh was debited from his account and the next day another Rs 1.32 lakh was debited.

The conman called Rathwa and told him that his loan has been cancelled and the no-objection certificate (NOC) about the cancellation would be emailed to him.But when Rathwa opened the bank's app, the credit card menu showed a pending EMI of Rs 10,000.

This is when he realized that he may have been conned.

He went to the bank on April 17 and learnt that a loan was taken on his card and it wasn't cancelled."We are trying to track down the bank account into which the money from Rathwa's bank account was transferred.

Also, the investigation will also focus on the bank as the fraud caller knew about Rathwa's credit card and that it wasn't activated," said police sub-inspector J U Gohil, taluka police station.