Faced with sharply rising rates, many consumers looking for real estate are comparing loans on the Internet. But scammers are taking advantage of this to set up scams with very attractive offers.
Becoming a homeowner is a lifelong project for most people. But finding the home of your dreams and acquiring it at a fair price is an obstacle course. For the majority, the “Bank loan” step is inevitable. But the opacity and complexity of the banking market make research risky and negotiations particularly tough. And scammers try to take advantage of this!
As reported What to choosefor several weeks, the Prudential Control and Resolution Authority, the ACPRhas noticed an increase in scams involving false offers of real estate credit and loan buybacks through pseudo-online comparators, such as comparateur-taux-credit.com, eligibilite-credit.com, comparateur.eco-durable.info, or advertisements on social networks.
The vast majority of these scams are based on impersonating brokers and credit institutions authorized to operate in France. In concrete terms, the scammers pretend to be brokers and try to attract people who are planning to take out a mortgage by offering attractive rates, sometimes less than 2%! The fake sites can sometimes look very similar to the originals, and they can present falsified official documents, with the logos of institutions authorized to grant credit in France as their headers.
These very attractive conditions are often presented as exceptional offers, limited in time, to encourage you to subscribe quickly. In addition, their granting is not subject to any resource conditions – no assessment of your solvency, which is mandatory for a consumer loan or a mortgage – nor is there any provision of security – no deposit required for example. Finally, the scammers promise to obtain the credit without delay, sometimes in a few minutes, and highlight the availability of funds within 24 to 48 hours following the request.
The goal of these scammers is for you to pay them a sum of money for various reasons (application fees, insurance, authentication, legalization, administrative fees, transfer, disbursement, etc.). Once the money is received by the fraudster, you then have no more news or you have to pay money again under a new pretext (loan release, various fees, etc.), without any more result.
So stay vigilant if you have to take out a loan, because certain signs should immediately alert you. Be wary if the interest rate of the loan is particularly low – for example between 0.5 and 2 points lower than the average market interest rate – and this before even having started the slightest negotiation, or if the site asks for very little information concerning the borrower’s solvency or promises an ultra-fast payment. Also watch out for urgent alerts and promotions, such as “last offer” or “only 24 hours left to take advantage of it”. On the contrary, a good broker must recommend the opposite to his client, that is to take his time to understand all the characteristics of the offer.
For security reasons, check that your broker is listed in the official register of intermediaries in banking or insurance transactions, Oriasand, on the contrary, that it is absent from the blacklists of public banking authorities. To be sure that it is not identity theft, look up the phone number and email address of the company you are calling, or even contact the company’s switchboard directly to verify that the person you are talking to is indeed an employee of the company. You can never be too careful!