[Students] BEWARE OF SITES OFFERING IMMEDIATE LOANS

Maria C Ramos Maria.Ramos at tamuc.edu
Wed Oct 24 17:29:56 CDT 2012


Beware of web sites that offer to make loans to you and receive funds in
as quick as 1 hour! How do they work? Maybe it's just a quick
application; Amount of the Loan, your email address, your name, phone
number and Zip code. Big button to APPLY NOW. Then you proceed to pay an
application fee so you may be asked to enter your information again, and
you are asked for your bank account information. Why? Because when your
loan is approved, you will receive your funds as quick as 1 hour.
Well here is what happens. Your bank account and personal information is
now available to someone who proceeds to deduct from your personal
checking account the application fee. You start getting a call from
someone indicating that you have to send certain amount of money in
order to maintain your loan active and if you do then you can receive
additional money through your loan. Or the caller may say... you have
applied for a loan and if you do not send money to repay the loan you
will be arrested. Sometimes the caller will even say that they are a
federal agent that is calling and that you must pay or face arrest
charges.... It goes on and on and the calls get more persistent and
threating. This is what occurred to one of our students who I spoke with
this afternoon. What to look for.
1. Web sites that advertise "Receive funds as quick as 1 hour" Pay Your
bills NOW!
2. Web sites that do not have any physical address at all. Though there
is no guarantee that a physical address is true. I've checked on
physical addresses that have ended up being postal service addresses or
in the middle of nowhere. 
3. Web sites that when you check their phone number such as the one this
student did and it leads to a cell phone number. 
4. Web sites that do no credit checks and guarantee that whether you
have no credit or bad credit you are guaranteed approval. 
Legitimate lenders will not do the tactics above. 
So beware, if you get calls indicating federal agents are going to
arrest you if you don't send money right away to a specific address,
etc. Hang up or better yet just tell the caller that you will report
them to the local authority or if they want to speak to the police
officer that just happens to be your neighbor. They will leave you
alone. 
If you think an email is not quite accurate, stay away from it and
delete it. And if something is too good to be true, it usually is. 

Maria del C. Ramos
Director, Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships
Texas A&M University-Commerce







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