Greetings,


My name is Eric and I was doing some searching online about loan and finance discussion and I came across these forums.


I have applied to a few sites about getting an unsecured personal loan. I was searching and applying to these sites a few days ago.


Earlier today, out of the blue, I get a phone call from a woman saying she's with E-Loan and that I have been approved for my unsecured loan of $10,000. She told me that she just needs to fax me a few forms for me to fill out and sign then they can send me a certified check via courier, or do a deposit into a bank acct.


However, she also told me that before she can fax these forms, I need to fax her a copy of the following: my drivers license, social security card, and last pay stub.



I am VERY paranoid about giving out personal information up front like this, with all this indenity theft and such going on nowadays. If I had paperwork to fill out and review from a loan company, where I could clearly see that this paperwork is from the company itself, then I wouldn't be so worried. But she wants me to fax this personal information to her before I have any paperwork or documentation to view.

So my question is, for those of you who have taken out a personal loan before, is this common practice? To require a copy of these documents before they can even fax you the paperwork? Should I be suspicious?


Thank you in advance for any advice.


-Eric

normally this would be done face to face, but if you initiated the loan request via their website, then they are contacting you at your request and have to take all that information before opening a loan account with you.

Personally I would go in to a financial institution where I can do all the paperwork at once.

This sounds like boiler room marketing - I've been getting a lot of spam telling me my loan has already been pre-approved.

Let's make one thing clear - no reputable lender will pre-approve a loan without knowing your personal circumstances and details intimately, in order to calculate the risk.

But there are plenty of crooks around who will go to any length to grab as much information as possible from you.

Bottom line is, it sounds like a phishing scam intended to use and abuse your records. Damn right you shouldn't send off these details.