How to Spot Loan Scams and Bogus Lenders on Social Sites

[Corey Dutton]

If you’re looking for a hard money loan or bridge loan, you can visit one of the many ‘lending-related’ groups many social networking sites such as this one. You’ll certainly find a lot of mess to sort through, in fact, bogus loan scams are having a big party on social sites and you’re the guest of honor. There are so many fake lenders posing as legitimate lenders on such websites, that it’s hard to figure out who is real. So how do you spot bogus lenders on social sites?

1.Look for loan terms that seem too good to be true.

2.Look for individuals located overseas that are lending in the U.S. They will have an office in a high profile location overseas such as London or Singapore.

3.Look for emails with incorrect English grammar. If you speak to them over the phone it’s typically a broken English accent.

4.Look for individuals offering loans who do not have proper websites or domain backed email addresses. For example an individual with a yahoo, hotmail, or other email address is a red flag.

5.Do a google search for the individual or the company name together with loan scam or fraud and see if anything pops up.

This is a short list of how to spot individuals on social sites who are posing as legitimate private money or hard money lenders. Beware, they will waste your time and take your money in the form of upfront fees. Note some of the red flags listed above in your next interaction with a potential hard money lender on a social site.