Who is behind credit scams on the internet? Loans of money up to several hundred thousand euros, at very low rates (2% or 3%), granted by other individuals. This type of proposal, obviously fraudulent, is relatively common on social networks, but also in the comment areas of websites such as MoneyVox. To better understand the modus operandi and the motivations of these scammers, we have answered some of them. Here is our survey of credit scams between individuals. “Credit between individuals. CDD, Unemployed, Interim, RSA, Retirement, Prohibited Banking, Over-indebtedness: solutions exist if you have the capacity to repay and respect the commitments of your request. » This type of announcement offering money loans between individuals , MoneyVox receives 1 to 2 per week on average, in the form of comments published under its articles, those in particular devoted to questions of purchasing power, or on our discussion forum . Sometimes they take the form of testimonials : “Hello. My name is XXXXX, I am among you to thank Madame Martine XXXXX for everything she has done for me. I had been looking for a loan for several months, I got scammed by malicious people, so I lost hope but she was able to put a smile on my face by offering me a loan of 40,000 euros , which allowed me to undertake an activity. » (1) . Follows, inevitably, an email address to contact to make a request. These messages do not stay on our site for long. MoneyVox constantly monitors the comments posted by its readers, and these are among those that give rise, on the spot, to a depublication and a banishment of the address used to post them. But, on the internet, we find them everywhere: on other websites and above all, on social networks. All these solicitations dig the same furrow: they try to exploit the financial fragility of certain French people who do not have, or no longer have, access to traditional bank credit to finance their projects or their end of the month. They are numerous. According to figures from the Banque de France (2) , nearly 30,000 households have filed over-indebtedness files since the start of 2022. individuals) following payment incidents (161,609) increased by 24% compared to 2021. The trend is also upward (+13%) for registrations with the FCC (Central Check File) following incidents on check. Clearly, thepotential victims of these credit scams are more numerous every day . How do these criminals get their way? What are their specific goals? To find out, we have decided to respond, on condition of anonymity, to some of these proposals. Here is what we were able to discover. Tempting Ads For the purposes of this article, we responded, by email, to six different advertisements. Two were in the form of testimonials from satisfied “customers” taking the time to promote their lender. The others were service proposals, addressed directly to their targets: people on fixed-term contracts, temporary workers, unemployed or on RSA, retired, banned from banking, over-indebted... Two advertisements, almost identical and very probably posted by the same person, even clearly displayed the range of amounts - between 300 and 300,000 euros - and an interest rate, obviously very attractive: 2%. By way of comparison, the rates actually charged by the banks, on loans of a maximum of 3,000 euros, were 15.83%, on average, in the 1st quarter of 2022, according to the Banque de France. To respond to these advertisements, we created an e-mail address and a fake profile : that of a man, single, temporary, earning around 1,300 euros per month and wishing to borrow 6,000 euros to buy a second-hand car, the his having given up the ghost. Always the same procedure What happened next ? Very quickly, generally in a few hours, sometimes less, we obtained answers from our interlocutors. They all looked pretty much the same. In a first email , our interlocutor puts us at ease by announcing his agreement in principle for the loan. Provided, of course, to fulfill a few conditions: to be of legal age, of "good character"... Then, in a second email , he asks us to provide additional information on the nature of the loan, but also our marital status, address, telephone number, email address, etc. In a third email , he confirms that the loan has been granted to us. To complete the grant procedure, he needs supporting documents , to be sent by email, in digital form. t this stage, it is difficult for us to continue the experiment, except to produce false documents. However, we have tried to circumvent the obstacle by adopting two strategies. In one case, we told one of our interlocutors of our concern about the use he would make of these documents . The tone, as well as the spelling and syntax, of the messages deteriorated a little: our interlocutor began by justifying his request by recalling that it was “the law”; then he tried to put us under pressure by threatening us with a lo n another case, we sent blurry and illegible photos of the requested documents, claiming a camera problem. There, our interlocutor contacted us several times, including by telephone on the number that we had given him, obviously not assigned, then by offering to exchange on the Instagram social network. What is the purpose of the scam? What are his crooks looking for who take the time to answer us and get back to us? Extortion does not seem to be their primary motivation . At no time, in any case as far as we were able to go, did our interlocutors make obtaining the loan conditional on sending money, which was still often the case a few years ago. On the other hand, all of them were very eager to extract as much information and personal documents as possible from us . To better understand what was at stake, we contacted police commander Thierry Pezennec, head of Sirasco financier (3) , a service that collects and analyzes intelligence on money laundering and mass scams. He confirmed to us that extortion was not the primary objective: “sometimes criminals condition access to fake credit on the payment of sums of money (as insurance, to release funds, etc. ), but their primary motivation is to collect as much personal data as possible about their victim. A technique known as "phishing", or more commonly still phishing . Why go so far as to ask for copies of proof of identity, residence or income? “This indicates that the scammer hopes to use these documents to open bank accounts in the name of his victims ,” says Thierry Pezennec. To do this, they take advantage of the possibility offered by certain players to open accounts remotely, without going to an agency. This is the case of online banks (Boursorama, Fortuneo...), neobanks (N26, Revolut...) and payment services (Lydia, Aumax for me...), but also traditional banks, such as Societe Generale. The documents required for these 100% online openings coincide precisely with the documents requested by our interlocutors.
Who is behind credit scams on the internet?
Loans of money up to several hundred thousand euros, at very low rates (2% or 3%), granted by other individuals. This type of proposal, obviously fraudulent, is relatively common on social networks, but also in the comment areas of websites such as MoneyVox. To better understand the modus operandi and the motivations of these scammers, we have answered some of them. Here is our survey of credit scams between individuals.
“Credit between individuals. CDD, Unemployed, Interim, RSA, Retirement, Prohibited Banking, Over-indebtedness: solutions exist if you have the capacity to repay and respect the commitments of your request. » This type of announcement offering money loans between individuals , MoneyVox receives 1 to 2 per week on average, in the form of comments published under its articles, those in particular devoted to questions of purchasing power, or on our discussion forum .
Sometimes they take the form of testimonials : “Hello. My name is XXXXX, I am among you to thank Madame Martine XXXXX for everything she has done for me. I had been looking for a loan for several months, I got scammed by malicious people, so I lost hope but she was able to put a smile on my face by offering me a loan of 40,000 euros , which allowed me to undertake an activity. » (1) . Follows, inevitably, an email address to contact to make a request.
These messages do not stay on our site for long. MoneyVox constantly monitors the comments posted by its readers, and these are among those that give rise, on the spot, to a depublication and a banishment of the address used to post them. But, on the internet, we find them everywhere: on other websites and above all, on social networks.
All these solicitations dig the same furrow: they try to exploit the financial fragility of certain French people who do not have, or no longer have, access to traditional bank credit to finance their projects or their end of the month. They are numerous. According to figures from the Banque de France (2) , nearly 30,000 households have filed over-indebtedness files since the start of 2022. individuals) following payment incidents (161,609) increased by 24% compared to 2021. The trend is also upward (+13%) for registrations with the FCC (Central Check File) following incidents on check. Clearly, thepotential victims of these credit scams are more numerous every day .
How do these criminals get their way? What are their specific goals? To find out, we have decided to respond, on condition of anonymity, to some of these proposals. Here is what we were able to discover.
Tempting Ads
For the purposes of this article, we responded, by email, to six different advertisements. Two were in the form of testimonials from satisfied “customers” taking the time to promote their lender. The others were service proposals, addressed directly to their targets: people on fixed-term contracts, temporary workers, unemployed or on RSA, retired, banned from banking, over-indebted... Two advertisements, almost identical and very probably posted by the same person, even clearly displayed the range of amounts - between 300 and 300,000 euros - and an interest rate, obviously very attractive: 2%. By way of comparison, the rates actually charged by the banks, on loans of a maximum of 3,000 euros, were 15.83%, on average, in the 1st quarter of 2022, according to the Banque de France. To respond to these advertisements, we created an e-mail address and a fake profile : that of a man, single, temporary, earning around 1,300 euros per month and wishing to borrow 6,000 euros to buy a second-hand car, the his having given up the ghost.
Always the same procedure
What happened next ? Very quickly, generally in a few hours, sometimes less, we obtained answers from our interlocutors. They all looked pretty much the same.
In a first email , our interlocutor puts us at ease by announcing his agreement in principle for the loan. Provided, of course, to fulfill a few conditions: to be of legal age, of "good character"...
Then, in a second email , he asks us to provide additional information on the nature of the loan, but also our marital status, address, telephone number, email address, etc.
In a third email , he confirms that the loan has been granted to us. To complete the grant procedure, he needs supporting documents , to be sent by email, in digital form. t this stage, it is difficult for us to continue the experiment, except to produce false documents. However, we have tried to circumvent the obstacle by adopting two strategies. In one case, we told one of our interlocutors of our concern about the use he would make of these documents . The tone, as well as the spelling and syntax, of the messages deteriorated a little: our interlocutor began by justifying his request by recalling that it was “the law”; then he tried to put us under pressure by threatening us with a lo n another case, we sent blurry and illegible photos of the requested documents, claiming a camera problem. There, our interlocutor contacted us several times, including by telephone on the number that we had given him, obviously not assigned, then by offering to exchange on the Instagram social network. What is the purpose of the scam?
What are his crooks looking for who take the time to answer us and get back to us? Extortion does not seem to be their primary motivation . At no time, in any case as far as we were able to go, did our interlocutors make obtaining the loan conditional on sending money, which was still often the case a few years ago. On the other hand, all of them were very eager to extract as much information and personal documents as possible from us . To better understand what was at stake, we contacted police commander Thierry Pezennec, head of Sirasco financier (3) , a service that collects and analyzes intelligence on money laundering and mass scams. He confirmed to us that extortion was not the primary objective: “sometimes criminals condition access to fake credit on the payment of sums of money (as insurance, to release funds, etc. ), but their primary motivation is to collect as much personal data as possible about their victim. A technique known as "phishing", or more commonly still phishing . Why go so far as to ask for copies of proof of identity, residence or income? “This indicates that the scammer hopes to use these documents to open bank accounts in the name of his victims ,” says Thierry Pezennec. To do this, they take advantage of the possibility offered by certain players to open accounts remotely, without going to an agency. This is the case of online banks (Boursorama, Fortuneo...), neobanks (N26, Revolut...) and payment services (Lydia, Aumax for me...), but also traditional banks, such as Societe Generale. The documents required for these 100% online openings coincide precisely with the documents requested by our interlocutors.
0 Response to " Who is behind credit scams on the internet? Loans of money up to several hundred thousand euros, at very low rates (2% or 3%), granted by other individuals. This type of proposal, obviously fraudulent, is relatively common on social networks, but also in the comment areas of websites such as MoneyVox. To better understand the modus operandi and the motivations of these scammers, we have answered some of them. Here is our survey of credit scams between individuals. “Credit between individuals. CDD, Unemployed, Interim, RSA, Retirement, Prohibited Banking, Over-indebtedness: solutions exist if you have the capacity to repay and respect the commitments of your request. » This type of announcement offering money loans between individuals , MoneyVox receives 1 to 2 per week on average, in the form of comments published under its articles, those in particular devoted to questions of purchasing power, or on our discussion forum . Sometimes they take the form of testimonials : “Hello. My name is XXXXX, I am among you to thank Madame Martine XXXXX for everything she has done for me. I had been looking for a loan for several months, I got scammed by malicious people, so I lost hope but she was able to put a smile on my face by offering me a loan of 40,000 euros , which allowed me to undertake an activity. » (1) . Follows, inevitably, an email address to contact to make a request. These messages do not stay on our site for long. MoneyVox constantly monitors the comments posted by its readers, and these are among those that give rise, on the spot, to a depublication and a banishment of the address used to post them. But, on the internet, we find them everywhere: on other websites and above all, on social networks. All these solicitations dig the same furrow: they try to exploit the financial fragility of certain French people who do not have, or no longer have, access to traditional bank credit to finance their projects or their end of the month. They are numerous. According to figures from the Banque de France (2) , nearly 30,000 households have filed over-indebtedness files since the start of 2022. individuals) following payment incidents (161,609) increased by 24% compared to 2021. The trend is also upward (+13%) for registrations with the FCC (Central Check File) following incidents on check. Clearly, thepotential victims of these credit scams are more numerous every day . How do these criminals get their way? What are their specific goals? To find out, we have decided to respond, on condition of anonymity, to some of these proposals. Here is what we were able to discover. Tempting Ads For the purposes of this article, we responded, by email, to six different advertisements. Two were in the form of testimonials from satisfied “customers” taking the time to promote their lender. The others were service proposals, addressed directly to their targets: people on fixed-term contracts, temporary workers, unemployed or on RSA, retired, banned from banking, over-indebted... Two advertisements, almost identical and very probably posted by the same person, even clearly displayed the range of amounts - between 300 and 300,000 euros - and an interest rate, obviously very attractive: 2%. By way of comparison, the rates actually charged by the banks, on loans of a maximum of 3,000 euros, were 15.83%, on average, in the 1st quarter of 2022, according to the Banque de France. To respond to these advertisements, we created an e-mail address and a fake profile : that of a man, single, temporary, earning around 1,300 euros per month and wishing to borrow 6,000 euros to buy a second-hand car, the his having given up the ghost. Always the same procedure What happened next ? Very quickly, generally in a few hours, sometimes less, we obtained answers from our interlocutors. They all looked pretty much the same. In a first email , our interlocutor puts us at ease by announcing his agreement in principle for the loan. Provided, of course, to fulfill a few conditions: to be of legal age, of "good character"... Then, in a second email , he asks us to provide additional information on the nature of the loan, but also our marital status, address, telephone number, email address, etc. In a third email , he confirms that the loan has been granted to us. To complete the grant procedure, he needs supporting documents , to be sent by email, in digital form. t this stage, it is difficult for us to continue the experiment, except to produce false documents. However, we have tried to circumvent the obstacle by adopting two strategies. In one case, we told one of our interlocutors of our concern about the use he would make of these documents . The tone, as well as the spelling and syntax, of the messages deteriorated a little: our interlocutor began by justifying his request by recalling that it was “the law”; then he tried to put us under pressure by threatening us with a lo n another case, we sent blurry and illegible photos of the requested documents, claiming a camera problem. There, our interlocutor contacted us several times, including by telephone on the number that we had given him, obviously not assigned, then by offering to exchange on the Instagram social network. What is the purpose of the scam? What are his crooks looking for who take the time to answer us and get back to us? Extortion does not seem to be their primary motivation . At no time, in any case as far as we were able to go, did our interlocutors make obtaining the loan conditional on sending money, which was still often the case a few years ago. On the other hand, all of them were very eager to extract as much information and personal documents as possible from us . To better understand what was at stake, we contacted police commander Thierry Pezennec, head of Sirasco financier (3) , a service that collects and analyzes intelligence on money laundering and mass scams. He confirmed to us that extortion was not the primary objective: “sometimes criminals condition access to fake credit on the payment of sums of money (as insurance, to release funds, etc. ), but their primary motivation is to collect as much personal data as possible about their victim. A technique known as "phishing", or more commonly still phishing . Why go so far as to ask for copies of proof of identity, residence or income? “This indicates that the scammer hopes to use these documents to open bank accounts in the name of his victims ,” says Thierry Pezennec. To do this, they take advantage of the possibility offered by certain players to open accounts remotely, without going to an agency. This is the case of online banks (Boursorama, Fortuneo...), neobanks (N26, Revolut...) and payment services (Lydia, Aumax for me...), but also traditional banks, such as Societe Generale. The documents required for these 100% online openings coincide precisely with the documents requested by our interlocutors."
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