When you are in Financial problems a personal loan is ideal to help you through the tough times. Fraudsters take advantage of you in this state and look for ways to hook you in and take your money. You then get bombarded by personal loan scams and fake credit card approvals.
Applying for a Loan? What to watch out for!
When applying for a loan, if accepted you have the money in minutes. Which is great but how can you know who is legit or not?
When searching you need to watch out for:
- Any company asking for money upfront to improve your chance of passing the credit check. No legit company ask for money upfront and you don’t usually pay for the first payment until a month after you’ve received the money. Some charge a fee but it will be within your first payment.
- Any company who says that say that it doesn’t matter about your credit history as this usually means they have no intention of sending you any money. Every lending company will tell you they have to do a credit check.
- Make sure that they are registered as a business as fake companies will not be registered or monitored.
- Watch out for sites that don’t start with https:// the ‘s’ means these are secure sites. If the site just has http:// that means the site is insecure so I would not type in any personal data on the site that would be needed to apply for a loan. An insecure site of this nature I would say that someone is doing what they shouldn’t.
- Any website that doesn’t have a business address. If they show an address check if it is a real address or not, this is where google maps come in very useful. Have a look if it is a business site or is it a residential area. If residential I would say a scammer is at work.
- Is it a loan company or someone saying they will find the best loan for you? These types of companies sell your information to loan companies but you don’t really know what they are doing with your data they might just be selling personal information to marketing companies to them spam you.
You should always be very careful when looking for personal loans and double-check everything before you input any personal details and bank details. Following the above steps will help to narrow down the legit sites and make sure that you and your money will be safe.
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Hi, my name is Graham, I am the founder and creator of grahamhodsdon.com. If you have any examples of getting caught up in a personal loan scam or have any questions about spotting scams please share in the comments below. It might just prevent someone else from being scammed too.