Fraud 101: Online Loans

Online loans are a tricky scam because legitimate financial institutions – Veridian very much included! – offer online applications for many products. The key is to make sure you're applying for a loan with a trustworthy institution.

Loan scams often center on unsecured or payday loans, which applicants typically need quickly. That leaves less time for vetting the lender, while applicants may feel so grateful to be approved that they don't notice the increasingly absurd hoops they are asked to jump through.

If you're asked for a display of good faith or to demonstrate your ability to repay the loan, alarm bells should begin to sound. Fake lenders will often "deposit" funds in your account and then ask you to repay that money – at which point the deposit will bounce. Other times they will simply ask for one or a series of checks before they will release your loan. You'll keep hearing new excuses for why your money hasn't been disbursed – sometimes even asking for more cash from you to, say, pay taxes – until you stop hearing from them altogether.

Here are some other ways unscrupulous lenders might try to rip you off:

• Give you the loan but hit you with hidden and often outlandish finance charges, greatly increasing the cost after the fact.
• Sign you up for some sort of recurring membership program, the details of which were completely buried in the fine print.
• Take your personal information and run, either for fraud of their own or to sell to others.

As always, be careful who you give your personal information to online. If a loan offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you're not familiar with the lender, do your due diligence and check with the Better Business Bureau or similar groups – or at least do a search online for the lender's name and "fraud" together and see what comes up. If you encounter an online loan scam, report it to the Federal Trade Commission.