Dealing with loan scams
A loan scam is when a criminal tricks you into paying up front for a loan to cover insurance, admin fees or a deposit. This money is taken and then the loan is never provided and the person or company offering the loan disappears. Initial contact about the loan is via an advert or direct contact by phone, text, email or on social media.
Alternatively, you are contacted about loan repayments on a loan you have not taken out and harassed to make repayments. The criminals may be impersonating a real company you have actually taken a loan from, but they get you to make payments into a criminal account.
As part of this scam, you may have shared lots of your personal data such as your bank and identity information.
Loan scams - Do this first!
Stop all communication with the criminals - do not provide any more information or money. Do not respond to any messages from them.
Report it - if you have lost money then it is highly likely a crime has been committed. Either way report it to IC3 and the Federal Trade Commission - whilst the FTC can’t act on individual reports, your report can help others.
Contact your Bank - call your bank and explain the issue. If the payment is recent then they may be able to freeze your money before it goes to the criminals. See our money recovery guide here. You can also report using the Cybera reporting tool.
Change passwords - if you have logged into any accounts as part of the scam or provided passwords change these immediately (and remember to change the other places you use that password). Check this guide for creating strong passwords.
Approaches to dealing with loan scams
If you did a screenshare scan your devices - if the criminal asked you to download any software so they could access your computer to help with the loan application then remove this software ASAP and run an antivirus scan. You can see our guide on moving malicious software here.
Try getting your money back - Use our guide to see different approaches to trying to recover any lost funds.
If the criminal is harassing or threatening you then get help - review our Online Harassment guide to see how to deal with this harassment.
Gather all communications from the criminals - to support a police or bank investigation it is important to save all of the evidence. Screenshot all messages and save the images in a secure place. Save any emails to a folder or secure inbox. If you can build a timeline of events listing what happened and when.
List all information you have shared - while capturing the evidence, review what information you have shared with the criminal and make a list. Change any passwords immediately, if email addresses have been shared then be careful of incoming emails and any financial details shared should be reported to your bank or card issuer.
Contact any impersonated companies - it may be that the criminal was pretending to represent a real company. If so, contact this organization and explain what happened. If you have an account with that company, ask them to check the security of your account and review any recent activity.
Check your credit report - Check what else the criminal has done with your information. A credit report will show you any searches done by a lender, what date the search took place, what name and address it was done against and also for what type of application. It will also show what credit accounts are set up in your name. You can contact any one of these credit reference agencies and receive support in resolving credit report problems caused by identity fraud. Popular companies that can provide your credit report include: TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.
Contact the credit bureaus - Contact the three main credit bureaus to request fraud alerts.
Beware recovery scams - Once you stop responding many criminals will contact you pretending to be the police or your bank offering to help you, but really scamming you out of more money. Do not engage with any incoming calls, emails or text messages from these sources.
How do I reduce the chance of being caught up in a loan scam?
Be careful of unsolicited messages - any messages you receive offering you a loan, credit card or other financial product may be a scam. Do not engage with potential lenders on social media. Instead research the official website for that provider and contact them directly.
Check companies are legitimate - You can use the Get Safe Online Check a Website service to check the risk of the website being a scam. You can also check the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Multistate Licensing System to check if the lender is real and licensed to operate in the USA.
Take our CIFAS Protective Registration - CIFAS Protective registration makes it harder for loans and financial credit to be taken out in your name. Adding this protection could limit any further issues.
Keep an eye on your credit score - It is worth keeping an eye on your credit score to check for any changes. Use the sites listed above to check.
Good online security & privacy - Keeping your security and privacy strong online will go a long way to stop you being targeted. Use sites like Get Safe Online and Security Planner to see how you can keep yourself safe.
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