People desperate for money in the run-up to Christmas are being scammed out of hundreds of euro in online loan frauds, gardaí have warned.
A number of websites offering unsecured loans are targeting financially vulnerable people in the scams known as advance fee fraud.
The Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) has warned people to be wary when trying to find credit and to carry out their own research into companies offering quick loans.
In some cases the person seeks out the loan themselves by doing a search online.In other cases they are tempted by ads on social media or click on links.
“In these cases, what occurs is the victim identifies a website offering loans which will be processed quickly and without security,” Detective Superintendent Michael Cryan of the GNECB said.
“The ‘company’ will often state that it is regulated by the Central Bank Of Ireland and provide an Irish address, which is usually false.
“The loan applicant will then complete an online application and will receive a call or communication within a very short time, often just minutes, informing them that their loan application has been approved, and will be told the amount of the loan and the monthly repayment.Sometimes they will offer more than what was sought.”
The victim will then be asked to send a small amount of money to the lender in advance of the loan amount being issued.
Different reasons are given for this advance fee, such as a set-up fee, paying for insurance on the loan amount or paying the first instalment of the loan to show the ability to meet repayments.
The victim will transfer the requested amount to obtain the loan in good faith, but no loan is ever issued and the advance fee is lost.
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In one such reported incident of advance fee fraud, a person living in the Dublin area contacted a company looking for a loan.They were asked to forward a deposit of €680 to guarantee the loan and ultimately lost the money.
“There have been amounts of €470, €350, €250, €140, €300 and €380 stolen as well in the last two months, and that is only the tip of the iceberg.We also suspect that many of these frauds are going unreported ,” Det Supt Cryan said.“The individual sums of money stolen are not massive, but to the vulnerable and desperate people who are being scammed it is a huge amount.”
Read More 30% jump in ‘authorised’ scam complaints recorded by ombudsman Famous faces misused in scam ads sign Martin Lewis letter to PM ‘Mule’ regret it: Cash-strapped students warned to avoid ‘easy money’ adverts “Someone who is desperate for money and can’t get a loan in a traditional way through a bank cannot afford to lose €100.What is particularly callous about this type of fraud is that it targets desperate people and leaves them even worse off,” he added.
“And while the amounts might seem small, a scammer can make a lot from them over time.
If you can scam 50 people out of €1,000, that’s €50,000.”
“Often times these victims are in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and could be desperate parents or grandparents trying to get money together for Christmas, and they are geographically spread all over the country.”
“The victims will often have given their bank details to the fraudsters too, thinking they are a legitimate company, and then they could find their account used to launder money without them knowing about it,” he explained.
There are a number of legitimate companies offering online loans, but fraudsters often mimic their names and websites, so gardaí advise that anyone looking for a loan online independently checks the Central Bank website to see if they are registered here.
“They might take the name of a registered company and change a word like ‘credit’ to ‘loan’ and you would hardly notice it.So you have to be very careful with your research,” said Det Supt Cryan.
The warning signs of these websites include the lender asking for a payment of some kind in advance, the website offering a fast and easy way to obtain a loan online and then the loan being approved very quickly.
The loan applicant may also be pressurized into making the advance payment immediately, often on the basis that the loan offer will be withdrawn if the fee is not paid.
These entities offering the loan will have a fake address, fake or otherwise incorrect post code for the address on the website and the advertised phone number will not be functioning.
No evidence is sought of the person’s ability to repay the loan and no guarantor or security will be sought.
Other warning signs include a lack of in-person meetings, the lender will not be regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland and the loan applicant may receive requests to pay a fee in advance by crypto-currency.
Gardaí are advising members of the public to never pay money in advance to the lender before the loan amount is drawn down; never apply for a loan to an entity that is not regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland; always check the official Central Bank of Ireland website to see if the company is regulated to provide financial services in Ireland: http://registers.centralbank.ie/
“Always research the entity offering the loan, their address, their post code and the phone number to check legitimacy, and use legitimate financial service providers and avail of the services provided by the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, (MABS)” said Det Supt Cryan.
“And if you do get caught out, report it to gardaí and we can move to have the sites shut down or have the Central Bank issue warnings about them so others don’t get scammed,” he added.
Read More 30% jump in ‘authorised’ scam complaints recorded by ombudsman Famous faces misused in scam ads sign Martin Lewis letter to PM ‘Mule’ regret it: Cash-strapped students warned to avoid ‘easy money’ adverts.
