I think I have a private lender and don't know what to do now!

[John Bunyan]

Hello fellow BiggerPockets family. I'm a newbie and I recently have found myself in a weird situation. I have a private lender that is interested in loaning me money to help secure real estate properties to flip to potential cash buyers in response to a post of another investor community where I was requesting assistance from "Private Lenders and/or Transactional Lenders". Here's the thing that scares me: the person claims to be from a REAL bank despite no real contact info being shown other than a gmail address and their first name and last name that they've been using to communicate with me. My questions are as follows: how do I verify their identity? Do I politely ask them for some kind of contact phone number with an extension # that I can reach them at? Maybe a bank address to verify that they are CURRENTLY employed with them? Do I just randomly call a branch of the bank and just ask to speak with a private lender there? Do banks EVEN HAVE private lenders? (Banks have different branches and with each branch, different loan officers/lenders sooooo) Any advice anyone? Anyone? By the way, it's great to meet you all and I hope you all have a Great Week!

[Frank Y.]

Hi, John: this seems fishy. Banks don't do private loan! Suggest you have a face to face meeting with this person and ask him who to qualify the private lending. Most importantly, don't pay any upfront fee. Good luck.