3. Unsolicited personal loan offers
You may receive legitimate personal loan offers through the mail, especially if you've applied for a personal loan in the past. But scammers may also throw their letters into the mix, hoping you'll mistake them for a real company. They may also reach out via phone or email, and gutsy scammers may even show up at your door to sell the lie.
No real personal loan companies contact you in these ways with unsolicited offers, so this is a pretty sure sign of a scam. Other things to watch out for are links to fake websites, requests for personal information, high-pressure sales tactics, and grammatical and spelling errors in any documents you receive.
What to do if you think you've come across a personal loan scam
If a personal loan offer sets off alarm bells in your head, there's probably good reason. Don't hand over any money or personal information to the company until you've taken steps to verify the company's reputation.
First, check if the company is registered to do business in your state by contacting your state attorney general's office. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires all legitimate lenders to be licensed in every state where they conduct business, so if it's unlicensed in your state, that's a sure sign you're dealing with a scam.
You should also check out the company's website. All websites that request financial information should be secured to prevent hackers from stealing it. You can tell if a site is legitimate by looking for "https" at the start of its URL. If the "s" is missing, that's a sign the company isn't taking steps to protect your financial information, and you shouldn't work with them.
Run a search for the company online as well to see if any negative information shows up, and try to track down an address for the company. A missing address is another red flag. Some scammers pretend they work with a legitimate company, so compare the emails, websites, and phone numbers the scammer gives you with the ones that come up during your internet search.
If you come across a scam, report the company to the FTC, your state attorney general's office, and your local police. Give them as much information as you can about the scammer, including the name they went by, the phone number they used, and copies of any correspondence you received from them. This helps these agencies track down the scammer and prevent them from hurting others in the future.
