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!