3 min read

Don’t fall victim to a personal loan scam

finance

June 4, 2019


With over 30 years’ experience, we at Auto & General have seen our fair share of financial scams. It is important to us to assist South Africans in making financial decisions that help rather than hurt them. That’s why we have put together a list of warning signs of fake personal loan offers and how you can tell the difference between us and the fraudsters.

Fake personal loans

There are many warning signs to look out for in personal loan scams; Auto & General will never do any of these.

  • Scammers may use a generic email address like Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail, and not a company address
  • Criminals may ask you to pay fees upfront. Auto & General includes all policy and admin fees in your monthly repayments
  • Personal loans exceeding R250 000 are rare and we don’t offer you more than this amount
  • A fake offer or website may have numerous spelling and grammar errors. At Auto & General, we pride ourselves on offering a professional service to our customers, which includes good spelling and grammar in all communications
  • Because a criminal may pretend to be a legitimate financial services provider, they might copy a company’s logo; this will often appear blurry or squashed. We only use high definition images of our logo

 

How to protect yourself against fake personal loans


Always read the terms and conditions whenever you take out a loan. With legitimate companies, these protect you and are heavily regulated by the law. We understand that it can be time-consuming to read them, but this is often where scammers hide fees that you unwittingly agree to.

If you see any of the above warning signs when considering a personal loan through Auto & General, please get in touch with us right away on 0861 877 775 so that we can investigate and take legal action against the criminals.

Auto & General loans are administered and provided by RCS, a registered credit and financial services provider. 

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