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Individual offering a 3% loan, any amount, any length of repay time. Requires no collateral, no signature, everything done online. Information I'm required to supply:

  • Name
  • Country
  • City
  • Address
  • Gender
  • Age
  • Marital status
  • Monthly income
  • Name of your bank
  • Occupation
  • Phone number
  • Information about your bank account: made funds transfer. (REQUIRED)
  • Name of your bank
  • Account number
  • RIB
  • IBAN

His bank will deposit the money into my account.

This just sounds too good to be true, so it must be a scam. How can I make sure?

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  • 4
    It would be an fair deal for both sides, so it is possible that it is true. However, the risk is just too high, and it would be also risky for the other party if it was real. If all humans were good people, that would work, but in this world, it's a scam.
    – Aganju
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 15:53
  • 6
    Sounds very scammy. Ask him some questions like which bank he's with, if you can get Truth in Lending disclosures on this loan, etc. Most likely, he won't reply or tell you that you have to act fast and not ask too many questions.
    – user1731
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 17:18
  • 5
    Where did this offer come from? It sounds like the kind of thing that would be in a spam email.
    – Zach Lipton
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 19:05
  • 23
    Give him fake but plausible information and soon he will tell you about the money he needs before he can send you any money.
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 4:09
  • 12
    Giving bank name plus account number, RIB and/or IBAN to ANY unverified stranger could be the quickest known way to empty the account with no chance of recovery.
    – user2338816
    Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 12:42

7 Answers 7

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77

It doesn't matter if the terms are a "fair deal" or are "too good to be true" — either way, it's definitely a scam. They are "phishing" for your personal information, including your banking information, and have no intention of giving you a loan.

How can I tell? Simple: all such offers like this everywhere are scams. There is no economic situation other than being a scammer to do this. Why would an individual put out their money to strangers at such a high risk for even a much, much higher purported return? They wouldn't.

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  • Quite dumb. Why would you scam someone looking for a loan? This is like robbing a homeless person.
    – Rob
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 7:52
  • 6
    @RobQuist Just because someone's looking for a loan doesn't mean that they've got no cash. If they're after a few grand for e.g. a new car, chances are they can afford a $150 'processing fee'.
    – SomeoneSomewhereSupportsMonica
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 8:27
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    @Rob While I'm sure that these scams sometimes hit desperate poor people, the ideal target is actually someone with a fair amount of money and a lot of greed who thinks they are going to get away with something. Someone who looks at the terms and thinks that they could get away with just never paying it back. Once someone is convinced that they are the one doing the scheming, they are an easy mark — they will start to rationalize anything, and are unlikely to go to the authorities (until way too late).
    – mattdm
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 11:29
14

It is a scam. Not only will it get your personal information, which could allow him to impersonate you (like, using your identity as the generous lender on a future scam), in order to fulfill the loan, a "small payment" for some documents will be needed. And next another for a certificate necessary for lending, and so on. Their goal is to get your money, not lending you any.

Aganju hit the nail: how would such person ensure that you will pay back, when he knows absolutely nothing about you? That would have been the #1 priority for someone that decided to invest using such unbelievable schema.

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  • 5
    he knows absolutely nothing about you He or she would know a lot actually: Name, address, phone, bank info, salary, etc.
    – user2023861
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 15:13
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    @user2023861 he knows that someone using a (free) email account sent him some documents stating a name, address, phone, salary, bank info, etc. All of which could be completely fake (and probably will if he is a fraudster). The only thing he knows with some certainty that at one point was true is the bank account where funds were deposited, which may be closed at the point he tries to claim his money back (or even have been misused without knowledge of his owner to begin with!).
    – Ángel
    Commented Dec 29, 2016 at 22:35
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any amount, any length of repay time

Ask if you can have a billion dollars for a billion years.

On a more serious note, that would actually be horrible advice because your monthly payment ($2.5M) would be the same at 669 years, so any term longer than that would be literally throwing money away. Though, one could argue that 669 years compared to 668 is also throwing money away, since you'd be paying an extra $30M over the course of the extra year to lower your payment by just 1 cent per month, but who are we to judge...

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10

I agree with you: it sounds like a scam. Those terms are too good to be true.

Online, it is too easy to pretend to be someone you are not. When choosing a bank to work with, you need to be confident of its legitimacy. Make sure you have heard of it someplace other than their own website and can trust it. In this case, this isn't even a bank; it is just an individual stranger. I can't see how this could possibly be legitimate.

With the information that they are asking for, they could potentially impersonate you and steal your money. I would stay away from this.

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3

Whenever you're not sure, you can always contact the regulatory agency in the location of the lender and see if they are registered. Organizations that lend out money tend to get oversight and have reporting obligations. Reputable banks in the United States will be a member of the FDIC.

However, without even looking anything up, I can already tell this is a scam. An actual lender would be required to identify who you are beyond a doubt (this is called KYC), and in addition would have to report your loan to some sort of tax authority. That means they must ask you for a tax identifier number of some kind, and would probably want your full date of birth instead of just your age.

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  • Some reputable banks are not FDIC insured.
    – Menasheh
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 7:42
3

How can I make sure?

You can't make sure.

Here is what is promised:

  • You give him a heap of personal details
  • He gives you a whole lot of money to be repaid one day at an unbelievably low interest rate

(Obviously things have to be done in this order).

Here is what will actually happen:

  • You give him a heap of personal details
  • You receive no money
  • He uses your personal details to impersonate you

The only way to "make sure" is to give all the information and watch the money disappear from your account. I advise against that.

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-2

In the very unlikely event that it is not a scam, there would be a distinct probability that it is someone trying to launder money. You don't want to get caught up with drug dealers or ISIS terrorists, so forget it.

There is also the possibility that your post is a scam, looking for people who would believe such nonsense. I wonder if people who reply are going to get phished.

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  • 11
    Tricking you into laundering money is also a scam.
    – mattdm
    Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 17:17
  • 8
    Looking for people to scam in a thread that is asking if it is a scam, with many responses saying it is indeed a scam, doesn't seem like the most likely scenario.
    – DasBeasto
    Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 17:52

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