Sweetheart loans: the straight story

OK, y'all. So you happen to be looking for a loan, and suddenly a guest on the site tips you to a great lender. Loans on bad credit, with a super-low interest rate. And they're not even a scam outfit. Oh, happy day! This could be the sweetheart deal you've been looking for.....





Waitadamnminutehere!.....



Does this deal sound too good to be true? Guess what, it is. Just kick back for a minute and listen to your favorite Uncle Wulf. I'll give you the straight dope about your would-be benefactor, Clara.

Now, you might envision Clara as a kindly gal in similar straits to you financially. After all, she's taken the time to post the contact info for this great lender for you. Matter of fact, she's posted the same message to a bunch of threads, to help out lots of people, right?

Wrong.

You see, Clara has lots of alter egos. You see the posts here and in other forums regularly. Sometimes it's a female personna, sometimes not. But it's always an offer that's just too good to be true.

That kindly gal, Clara, is really a sweaty, unemployed guy named Irving. He's 39 years old, lives in his mother's basement, and has never had a bath, a date or an honest job. He posts spam messages like this in forums all day, for a dime per post, to make ends meet. His hobbies are drinking, sleeping, and pulling the wings off of flies. He also enjoys trolling 'hot swingers' sites, posing as a tall, slender redhead named Destiny.

Kidding aside, these people are only interested in you for your money, and maybe your identity, which amounts to the same thing I suppose.

Here's a few pointers from your favorite Uncle that'll help you spot these turkeys before you part with your hard-earned cash.

1 - Posting the same message in lots of threads, often in a very short time frame. Sound like a hit-and-run job to you?

2 - It is not a scam. Yeah. Right. Sure it's not... That's why they tell you three times, in three consecutive sentences. It is not a scam. Kinda sounds like one of my favorite quotes: "I am not a crook." [former President Richard M. Nixon] Nobody but Gerry Ford believed him, either.

3 - They use a Yahoo email account because it makes contacting them easier. Bullsh*t. They use a Yahoo [or Hotmail, or Bigfoot, etc.] email account because it makes tracing them virtually impossible. That's why lots of reputable companies block email from the large free email providers. Those accounts are a major source of scams, spam, viruses, and other fun stuff.

4 - "interest rate of 0.2%" They want you to believe that they're making high-risk loans for major amounts, several points below prime rate. They can't get the money to lend that cheaply. In effect, they want you to believe they're paying you to take their money. Anybody smell a rat here?

5 - Multiple errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Come on. You'd get an 'F' in seventh-grade English for writing like this. While not every poorly written post is a scam, it's certainly one more warning sign in this case.