With Christmas approaching, this is time of year when your budget may be going into the red, but if you need a loan, don’t be fooled by some online offers.
Advance fee loan scams are still a big problem.
Joseph Ert is a contractor who wants to invest in a business opportunity but he was turned down by the banks.
He searched online for lenders who help people with poor credit. A company called Capital Finance in B.C. approved his loan request with the provision he pay for loan insurance.
Ert sent the money but became suspicious when the company asked him for more money to transfer the loan. He never received the loan and eventually discovered it’s illegal to charge upfront fees for loans in Canada.
“Little did I know I was going to get scammed by this because I got financing and funding before and it’s just this one seemed legitimate,” Ert told Global News.
Sandra Crozier-McKee of the Better Business Bureau says the people running these types of scams may not even be in the country.
“Most of these online ones, even though they give the appearance of having a local phone numbers, local contact information, in fact they are not located in our province on even in our country.”
The website that Ert’s online lender is no longer available and no one answered emails from Global News.
However, if you search the name and phone number you will find warnings from other victims.
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