A Loan You Never Took Is on Your CIBIL Report: How to Get It Removed

Quick Answer: If a loan you do not recognise appears on your CIBIL report, first download your full Credit Information Report and check the lender name, account number and opening date. Then raise a free ownership dispute with CIBIL and, at the same time, complain in writing to the lender's grievance officer. Under RBI's framework, a qualifying credit-information complaint must be resolved within 30 calendar days, with ₹100 per day of delay beyond that, subject to eligibility conditions.

The most common surprise is not fraud — it is a credit line you used without realising it was a loan. Under RBI's digital lending rules, an app cannot lend its own money unless it holds a banking or NBFC licence, so food, shopping and pay-later apps typically partner with a regulated NBFC or bank that actually underwrites the facility. The lender name on your credit report is therefore often the partner NBFC, not the app you used.

That is why a "Pay Later" checkout, a buy-now-pay-later limit, or a small credit line opened inside an app can show up as a personal loan tradeline. Other causes are genuine: a loan taken in a similar name, an old closed account still showing as active, or — less commonly — identity misuse. The report itself tells you which one you are dealing with, which is why step one is always the full report, not the score summary.

Your credit score is a single number; the dispute lives in the account details. Download your complete Credit Information Report from TransUnion CIBIL — CIBIL provides one free report a year — and check four fields on the unknown account: the lender's legal name, the account number, the opening date, and the reported status (active, overdue, closed, settled).

Match those fields against your own records, searching your email and app history for the lender's name, not just the app's brand. If you find a pay-later facility from that lender, the account may be yours after all — and the question becomes whether its balance and status are reported correctly.

Do not rely on a single channel. Raise a free online ownership dispute on the CIBIL portal for the account you do not recognise, and simultaneously send a formal written complaint to the reporting lender's grievance redressal officer. Keep both acknowledgement numbers and the dates you filed.

Filing with both parties matters because the correction chain has two links: the lender must verify and send corrected data, and the bureau must update your report. A complaint to only one side can stall while each side waits for the other. Keep copies of everything — screenshots, acknowledgement emails, and any reply — because the 30-day clock runs from the date of your complaint.

RBI's Framework for Compensation to Customers for Delayed Updation or Rectification of Credit Information, issued in October 2023, sets a 30-calendar-day deadline for resolving a qualifying complaint about incorrect credit information. Within that window, the lender (credit institution) gets 21 days to verify and forward corrected data, and the bureau (credit information company) gets the remaining 9 days to update the report and close the complaint.

If a qualifying complaint remains unresolved beyond 30 calendar days, compensation of ₹100 per calendar day of delay may be payable, credited to your bank account within five working days of resolution. The arithmetic is simple: a complaint resolved on day 45 means 15 days of delay, or ₹1,500; resolved on day 60 means 30 days, or ₹3,000. But compensation is not automatic for every dispute. It applies only where the delay is the lender's or bureau's fault under the framework, and not where a complaint is rejected with valid reasons or delayed because documents were not provided. Do not treat the ₹100 figure as a guaranteed payout — treat it as a deadline with teeth.

There is a reason to take the deadline seriously. In orders dated 31 August 2026, made public in early September, RBI imposed monetary penalties on three credit bureaus — TransUnion CIBIL, CRIF High Mark and Equifax — for not paying customers the compensation owed when credit-record corrections ran late. TransUnion CIBIL's penalty was ₹26,82,800. The message for borrowers is practical: note your complaint date, count the 30 days, and follow up in writing if the deadline passes.

If the 30 days pass without correction or compensation, escalate to the RBI Integrated Ombudsman through the RBI complaint management portal at cms.rbi.org.in, or by calling the toll-free number 14448. You will need your complaint dates, acknowledgement numbers, and the responses (or non-responses) from the lender and the bureau.

Separately, lenders must now report credit data to bureaus every 15 days, under an RBI rule effective 1 January 2025 — a shift from roughly monthly reporting. That means a genuine correction should show up faster than it used to, and a correction that still has not appeared after two reporting cycles is worth chasing, not waiting out.

- Do not pay off a loan you do not recognise just to make it go away. Payment can be read as acceptance of the account, and it does not fix the underlying record.

- Do not ignore it either. An unknown overdue account can lower your score and complicate a future home, car or personal loan application.

- Do not pay a "credit repair" service that promises to delete the entry or boost your score. A genuine error is corrected free through the dispute process above; no third party can delete an accurate record.

Disclaimer: Educational content only — not financial advice. Consult a SEBI-registered investment adviser for personal guidance; investments are subject to market risk.

Sources: RBI Framework for Compensation to Customers for Delayed Updation/Rectification of Credit Information (Oct 2023); RBI monetary penalty orders on credit bureaus dated 31 Aug 2026, as reported Sept 2026; TransUnion CIBIL dispute portal guidance; RBI 15-day credit reporting rule effective 1 Jan 2025 (circular dated 8 Aug 2024).