With so many people finding it hard to secure loans for car financing, mortgages, and other forms of lending, a number of scam artists touting fake loan offers have emerged. Often appearing as legitimate loan agencies, these con artists sometimes sweeten the deal with promises of a credit card account to help rebuild damaged credit. Fortunately, there are ways to identify this type of questionable offers from proper loan arrangements provided by reputable lenders.
One of the first indications that something is amiss is when you find it difficult to find information on the company that is offering the mortgage or car loan. Legitimate businesses tend to have a strong presence in the business community, and data about the stability of the company is usually available to anyone who is interested. If you cannot find the data readily, and especially if the lender is somewhat vague in where the business is located and how long it has been in business, end the communication immediately.
Another sure sign is that you find a large number of complaints logged with various consumer protection agencies and online consumer complaint web sites. While legitimate companies do receive their number of complaints from unsatisfied customers, look for recurring trends in those complaints. If there are repeated incidents of sudden rate increases, payments posted late, or an inability to get answers to queries forwarded to the lender, take that as a sign you do not need to enter into any type of contract with that lender.
Last, beware of lenders that exhibit little interest in your current income level or debt load. While promises of a loan with little to no financial information required may be attractive, legitimate lenders typically do not extend loans to people who do not have enough income to meet the payments. If the loan seems too good to be true, it probably is exactly that.
Tags: car loan, credit card, mortgage
