With the advent of the internet, it is now easy to learn about people’s behaviors online. The data captured during this learning process is used to serve people targeted adverts.
What this means is, if you are always visiting flight booking sites, or looking for low rate air tickets online, or visiting a lot of sites that talk about travel and tourism, then other flight booking sites can target you with Ad messaging that talks directly to what you are looking for.
A recent BBC investigation in the United States of America has proven that a digital agency, Cambridge Analytica, used this technique to reach over 50 million Americans in the 2016 general elections.
This shows how powerful this capability is. Data scrapping and usage is applicable to almost any business that has online presence. This is a good thing, but it also has a huge impact in the outrage of scam on the internet.
When people have learned so much about you, they can easily send you the exact message with shinny offers like the one you want to see, and if they are not legit, you can easily get scammed.
Now let’s bring it home.
You can also be scammed when looking for quick loans online to solve urgent needs.
If you don’t like your loan provider’s terms, or have bad credit when applying, an online lender might cater to your specific needs. But it can be harder to tell a scam from a legit offer.
In this post, we discuss the red flags to look out for when applying for a loan, before you make the decision:
#1: No Physical Address:
This is the first danger signal. If a financial service provider wants to give you a loan and that they don’t have a physical address or contact information, put the brakes on your application.
Scammers make it difficult to get in touch later, thus avoiding any legal action you might want to pursue against them.
#2: ‘Your Offer is Expiring Soon — And You Must Act Now’:
If they won’t give you time to even think things through or do due diligence about them, or compare theirs with offers from other lenders, then you’ve likely found a scam.
Legitimate lenders offer transparent and almost steady rates that depend on your credit score.
Unnecessary pressure tactics are designed to trick you to act quickly, before you’re able to spot a scam in progress.
#3: You’re Guaranteed Approval:
There’s no such thing as a guaranteed loan. For approval, a lender will typically check your credit score and verify your information.
At Page, we use sophisticated Machine Learning Algorithms to perform the first stage of this credit checks. Until the algorithm gives us the go-ahead, we cannot say who will get a loan and who will not.
Scammers lure you in with guaranteed approval so they can collect fraudulent fees and other charges.
#4: Your Loan offer Is incomplete:
Here’s a core truth you must know: the Lending Act requires all lenders to provide the complete terms of a loan, including the final cost of the principal plus interest, before you sign on the dotted line.
If your offer lacks details, has some gray areas, contains spelling or grammatical errors, or otherwise raises an eyebrow, it could be a scam.
You have the right to request clarification on every information on the paper before signing.
#5: The Lender isn’t registered With The CBN:
The Federal Government requires that all financial services are registered with the Central Bank of Nigeria for regulatory purposes.
This is in a bid to supervise the activities of such financial institutions to determine how fit they are to provide financial services to the public.
The licenses differ, some are state wise, some are regional while others are national. You need to know which license your financial service provider has before you get involved.
If you find a business isn’t licensed to operate in your state — even if it’s licensed in other states — don’t respond to its lending inquiries. You might have stumbled on a fraudulent website using an existing business’s name to make money fraudulently.
