How Can I Get Scammed by a Fake Title Loan Company?
Have you been scammed by a fake title loan company? This is a warning to people who have been taken advantage of by fake companies who claim they are title loan providers. Max Cash®Title Loans is real and will connect eligible people to title lenders across the country.2 5
But some websites are not the real deal!
Here is how this scam works:
Scam groups, usually out of this country, look at the BBB, Consumer Affairs, Consumer Reviews, Yelp, ect. and look for the companies that seem popular. Then they find out as many things as they can about that company by going through the process themselves, thus making them sound VERY legitimate. They will then buy lists from lead providers, usually payday loan lead providers but it could be any they think people are looking for a title loan and call.
The call starts out with telling you that you are approved for a loan. They will say they need information… and start gathering as much as they can. Most of the time they will ask for your bank info to “deposit money into your account” or they will tell you that you need to pay an “origination fee” upfront by sending money to them and give you their information. They will even refer you to the companies website to “prove who they are” but in fact it’s not their website at all. Real companies will disclose if this is their site or an affiliate of theirs.
After you do this, they steal money from your account or you would have sent them money and then they never fund you because they were never a title loan company in the first place!
This new scam is being played out not just in the title loan industry but also the banking and credit union industry. So it’s not just about title loan companies.
TO BE CLEAR: A legitimate title loan company will NEVER EVER ask you to pay anything to them to get a loan…ever. If they did and you had money taken from you act right now!
What to do RIGHT NOW:
- First, call your bank and freeze or close your account. If possible, dispute the money pulled with the bank.
- Try and recall what you told them and call the credit bureau and put a security warning on your reports. To do that, click this link for a security freeze. You need to do this with all three credit bureaus and the link we provided was JUST for Experian, but there is also TransUnion and Equifax.
- Report this incident to your LOCAL police, as well as the FCC and the FBI.
How to Get Your Money Back
If this is a legitimate company, they have a license or at the very least a federal tax ID. With a legit company, you are dealing with a normal process of telling them you want your money back and if you can prove they scammed you, sue them in civil court. A legitimate company would have had you sign a DocuSign or a contract so don’t confuse them with the scammers.
If this is NOT a legitimate company, your recourse is limited. Your bank MAY – but is not obligated to- give you the money back. Most of the time, you are simply out this money and have been scammed by a fake title loan company.
What You Can Do in the Future
This sounds hard but actually it’s very easy with today’s technology. Have an iPhone? Can you FaceTime? See if they can and actually see the person you are talking to and their office.
Ask them to take a picture of their license. Licensed companies are REQUIRED to put their license by their front door in normal view. A simple text picture will validate this for you. Again, scammers don’t have this.
Ask them to take a pic of the outside their office and get visual proof to avoid being scammed by a fake title loan company.
Tell them that you will call them back from the phone number on the website, NOT the number they provided you in the call. Scammers do not waste time building websites… at least yet. Also if a scammer builds a site that uses the name of the title loan company, the title loan company knows about this and usually is handling it legally to get it forced down. So the real ones stay. You can go to the wayback machine and see how old the site is. If it is brand new, I would avoid that company. Ours is over a decade old. The older the site, the older the company, the less chance they are a scam.
What to Do if You Have a Title Loan with a Real Car Title Loan Company and Do Not Like Your Loan Terms
When you need money, any offer seems amazing. But later, when you noticed that you could not get out of that loan because of the interest rate, you are now furious. We get it.
So the solution to this is actually easy. Refinance that loan and get a new one with different terms and competitive rates.4 5
But if you don’t want to go through us, you can do it yourself. However, if you were duped one time, you might get duped again. We have gotten THOUSANDS of people money through car title loan lenders who actually are real, honest, and care about their borrowers. Complete an online form today to get started!4 5