How To Avoid Loan Scams In Nigeria

This article is written to educate you on ways you can detect scammers posing as loan platforms. As Nigerians, we are currently experiencing an economic crunch that is biting hard on us. It has pushed us to the limit and due to that, several of us have turned to loan apps to mitigate the effect but there is every need for us to be careful.

Loan Scams In Nigeria

Scammers are fraudulent organizations that pretend to be banks on the Internet. They extort money from people ostensibly for online banking services and under various pretexts force naive clients to make several payments. This article will help you know how to identify scammers posing as loan agents. These scammers have devised means to scam people of their monies all in the name of trying to help these people secure loans and below are some of their methods.

1. Emails

Letters with promising offers are sent en masse to the email addresses of potential clients. Scammers make enticing promises of superior terms compared to legitimate banks and microfinance institutions, alluring potential customers with offers of lower interest rates on loans. Victims are found through so-called “online loan selection services”, where the consumer fills out a single application for a loan – and it is sent to different banks and microfinance organizations.

2. Charges

Fraudsters ask you to pay for something under various pretexts. For example:

“Your loan has been approved; however, we currently don’t have a local office in your area. Therefore, there is a fee associated with transferring the funds.”

“In order to secure the loan, you are required to purchase insurance, and this payment is required in advance.”

The sum of the insurance is usually indicated in percent of the loan amount (for example, 1.5%). This convinces the client that everything is true. The insurance money is requested to be transferred to the bank account. You must have read in some of my articles here on how to access loans and I believe the matter of paying insurance wasn’t mentioned. Loan apps won’t ask you to pay any insurance package. Once you pay, the scammers stop communicating with you.

How To Recognize Scammers

If links are attached to their mails, please do well to check and verify their authenticity or otherwise.
Ask questions. I know you need money but please do well to ask others if they have accessed loans from the platform before. You can go further to verify by checking them up online.
Check out their names and logos to see what comes up. There is no loan platform that will not be registered with the relevant authorities in the country.
If they operate a website, then check the design quality of such site. The quality of such sites is usually low. The goal of crooks is to earn money and not spend money on a good design.
You are unlikely to find on the site open information about the organization’s work, which banks are obliged to publish on their sites: statutory documents, financial statements.
Don’t leave your personal data on dubious sites and don’t transfer and be very sure of any loan facility before you share your data with them. Not all websites can protect your confidential information.
Do well to decline and block emails that are sent to you offering you a loan without you seeking to get a loan from them. Legitimate loan platforms will never ask for the PIN to your ATM card or your bank account details before you apply for the loan.
Remember that no loan platform will ask you to pay certain amount of money as insurance before you can access loans.