How to recognize fraudulent loans

A loan is a financial instrument which allows your company to have the liquidity necessary to meet the financial responsibilities of your business, like paying your suppliers or acquiring raw materials or work equipment. 

This is something extremely important for your business, so you have to be very cautious when choosing not only to verify that the offer is something that suits your business, but also to discard opportunistic people who are looking to swindle people. 

For this reason, we will tell you the basic elements for you to be able to detect when it is a fraudulent loan.

Do not trust loans where no credit bureau or credit history is required

You have surely seen several pages or ads that offer credits without credit bureau and without a guarantor; this is the first element to be suspicious, because all financial companies that offer loans need to have a guarantee to know that you will return the money. That is why they ask for documents to verify your financial statements or to know your monthly income.

So think of it, you would never lend money to anyone you do not know, so why a company would do that. This kind of offers can be a way to get your personal data and misuse it.

No money is ever requested in advance

A request for money before they give you a loan is a red flag. A lot of companies are unfortunately dedicated to promote web pages, publications in social networks, flyers, etc. to offer personal or SME loans for relatively small amounts or amounts of up to 3 million pesos. They offer all this with much lower interest rates than any other institution. Be careful, if it is too good to be true, it is probably a reason for suspiciousness.  

Such groups offer to authorize the credit but ask you to deposit an amount as a guarantee or to speed up the process, or indicate that they charge a percentage of the money you wish to obtain on credit to cover administration costs, insurance, etc. This is not true, because when you make the down payment, these companies disappear or even change their name so that you cannot contact them.

Beware of phone calls from banks

Currently, thousands of people receive calls from unfamiliar numbers and when answering, they are from a well-known bank to tell you that you have a pre-approved loan. Yet, when you have not applied for such support or do not even have an account at the bank from which you are supposed to be contacted, there is no reason for them to call you. This also applies if offers are sent to your email address.

Such calls or messages are used to request important data from your cards, with the excuse of validating your identity, but they are a fraud to clone your card. It is important to know that no bank can ask you to give all the numbers of your card and much less to give the security code (the one on the back of your card).

How to check for a reliable online loan

In the event you need to apply for credit, you can also check the Registry of Financial Service Suppliers, prepared by the National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Users of Financial Services (CONDUSEF by its initials in Spanish). You should also verify that the contact information and social network accounts are official, since there are also fraudsters who impersonate well-known institutions. 

And finally, we highly recommend reading this guide on business loans to learn all the details before applying for these resources.

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