Consumers looking for cash loans from online moneylenders are falling victim to a scam, the Central Bank has warned.
The regulator said on Wednesday it is seeing an increasing number of cases of so-called “advance fee fraud” that targets customers of high-cost credit providers, as moneylenders are now referred to under consumer credit legislation passed last year.
The scam targets consumers applying for cash loans. It offers them a cash loan in exchange for an upfront fee or an administration fee to apply for a loan.
“Beware of any firm that looks for an upfront fee from you. There are rules in place that mean no legitimate high-cost credit provider can ever charge you an administration or application fee for a loan. If you are being charged a fee, you should immediately walk away and stop engaging with that firm,” said Colm Kincaid, director of consumer protection at the Central Bank.
“In some cases, we have seen websites that have been cloned from legitimate providers. So even in cases where no fee is charged, you should still check our [online] register to ensure the provider you are dealing with is regulated by the Central Bank, which provides you with a number of protections.”
The Central Bank said that it will continue to be vigilant to identify and deal with scams of this nature, and engage with An Garda Síochána to combat it.
The authority said warning signs that a purported credit provider’s website is likely a scam include cases where the website does not state it is regulated by the Central Bank, pushes for quick decisions on taking up a loan, or says there will be no credit checks on customers.
Financial losses from scams globally have risen 25 per cent in the past year to €974 billion, or just over 1 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP), the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and ScamAdviser said in a report published earlier this month. The report said that phone calls and text messages were scammers’ primary avenues, with shopping scams, identity theft, and investment fraud topping the list.
