Menu



error This forum is not active, and new posts may not be made in it.
1
Promote
Trina Sonnenberg

1049
784 Posts
784
Invite Me as a Friend
Person Of The Week
Online Lending Scam Alert
12/7/2007 1:09:21 PM
BUSTED!
Trina L.C. Sonnenberg


The Internet is a wonderful resource, but my advice to you is to let your fingers do the walking through the yellow pages, when it comes to borrowing money for anything. Here is yet another warning to all of those using the Internet to look for a lender.

Seniors are targeted for lending scams, and so are young adults and particularly college students.
My son, freshly 18 years-old, wanted to get a loan to buy a car, and to put some money in the bank for college, next fall. Being that he is young and has no credit history, finding a local lender was not working for him, so he went looking online.

He was offered a $20,000 loan, at 7.9% interest, for a 36 month term. That sounds pretty good, wouldn't you say? Well, being that the world of finance is new to him, he had the presence of mind to call his mom (me) and ask for advice.

Me, being the skeptic that I am, I got some information from him, and called the person he was dealing with. Without asking me for any verification as to who I was, the person gave me all the information about my son, and this loan, that I'd asked for. RED FLAG! That person should've refused to talk to me.

I got online and Googled the bank name, and found something interesting. The web site he'd visited did not provide a telephone number, just an address in New York, and an email address. On top of that, there was more than one web address listed on Google for the name of this lender. Both web sites were completely different from one another, and the address listed on the one my son went to was not the same as the other either. In fact, the legitimate bank is in Canada. (I'll give you the name in a minute.)

After checking these things, I sat down and did a little math. They offered him $20,000, with payments of $404 per month for 36 months. Now, 404 x 36 is $14,544, not $20,000. Why would they loan more than they'd get in repayment? On top of that, they wanted a down payment of $1600.00 to close the loan.

I called my son back and told him to close his checking account, as they had gotten that information from him, and to call this company and tell them, NO DEAL!

Then I called the FTC. This type of scam is referred to as an advanced fee lending scam. It is illegal in the United States, for a lending institution to ask for an advanced fee. All loan fees are supposed to be included (financed) in the loan.

The FTC also told me that it is very common for scammers like these to use the name of legitimate lenders so that when someone does do a search for them, they find all of the information on the legitimate bank.

Here is the bogus bank information:
Scotia Capital Investment
http://www.scotiacapitalinvestment.com
55 W. 125th St.
New York, NY 10027

This is the information on the legitimate bank:
Scotia Capital
http://scotiacapital.com
Toronto
40 King Street West
Scotia Plaza,
P.O. Box 4085, Station "A"
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5W 2X6
(416) 863-7411

There are plenty of legitimate online lenders, but please research them before committing to anything, and by no means ever agree to pay an advance fee. You'll never see your money again. Wire transfers are not traceable, and money sent this way cannot be recovered. There is no paper trail.

You are better off to use a local lender.

Copyright © 2007
The Trii-Zine Ezine
www.ezines1.com

About the Author:
Trina L.C. Sonnenberg
Publisher - The Trii-Zine Ezine - Your Trusted Source for Internet Business and Marketing Information. Serving online professionals since 2001. ISSN# 1555-2276
http://www.ezines1.com/triizine
http://www.ads-on-q.com/intro
Author of: My Journey A Lifetime of Verse http://stores.lulu.com/triizine
Internet Marketing Mavens
http://internetmarketing-mavens.com

Keywords: lending scams, advanced fee scam, online lenders, banking


Trina L.C. Sonnenberg Freelance Commercial Writer TLC Promotions & The Trii-Zine Ezine ISSN 1555-2276 http://www.tlcpromotions.net http://trii-zine.com http://FAA.tlcpromotions.net
+0
Larry Blethen

4210
2241 Posts
2241
Invite Me as a Friend
Top 100 Poster
Person Of The Week
Re: Online Lending Scam Alert
12/8/2007 3:56:15 PM

hello Trina....wow..thank you for your heads up on this one...you did good

   Happy Holidays...Larry

Larry Blethen http://www.bluelight-marketing.com larry.blethen@bluelight-marketing.com, 304-369-5603
+0
1


facebook
Like us on Facebook!