Very Dodgy Business Loans

The big banks and lenders give business loans but there are also a lot of small operations that claim to offer business loans and sometimes how they operate seems very dodgy.

A recent email from social-credit.co.uk tells us that says we are eligible for funding options.

“We help you gain access to rates as low as 4.9% for Unsecured loans and 2% for Secured Loans (indicative).”

“Gain access to funds in 24 hours”.

There is a website social-credit.co.uk which isn’t about loans but about getting your ‘social credit report’ on a subscription basis.

There used to be a UK company called Social Credit Report but it was opened and closed by Jason Jamie Roberts in 2016.

He is currently a director of multiple other companies.

The bottom of the email says Copyright loans2grow.co.uk so you might assume that is the actual lending company.

Loans2Grow is not a UK registered company.

There is a website loans2grow.co.uk which lists the name Intatrade Data Network Limited at the bottom of the home page.

This is not a UK registered company name.

At this point I gave up on trying to find a genuine company name – but I would certainly not want to have any financial dealings with a business that seems to hide behind aliases.

Do enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Synthetic Identity Fraud

Until recently, identity theft involved the criminal getting enough of your personal details to be able to pretend to be you and open accounts in your name, take out loans, credit cards etc.

Now, we have synthetic identity theft, which is where the criminal combines real and fake information to create a new identity. These fake identities are then used to open accounts, make purchases etc. but also apply for unemployment benefit, duplicate accounts etc.

These criminals steal identity information e.g. social security number, passport number, identification cards etc. and couple that with false information such as names, addresses, birth dates etc.

They now have a whole series of synthetic identities to use for criminal purposes.

People who commit synthetic identity fraud may use these fake identities straight away or keep them for weeks or months and build up a track record in each of lawful usage. This makes it easier to use them at a later stage without drawing attention to their lack of transactions and credit history.

It can be difficult for the financial institutions to recognise this as fraud as there may not be any victims e.g. if for example, a criminal uses a stolen social security number but fake name and address.

Synthetic identities are often used by organized crime rings, which set up many such accounts to use for money laundering and dispersion of money to members.

For people caught out in this fraud, it can be difficult to make sense of.

Imagine you contact your bank about your personal account and they ask you which one. It appears you have two personal accounts in your name but with different addresses and other details.

This has happened.

Fightback Ninja Signature

The Problem of Dynamic Pricing

If you go shopping at your local shops, then you expect the prices of goods will stay basically the same. Inflation means there will be upward movement and sometimes special offers, but usually there are consistent prices.

Buying petrol is a difficult game as the price is set each day and petrol stations near each other will often change their prices to compete but there is usually at least a tiny difference in price for each petrol station you pass. You can fill your tank expecting the price to go up but it might go down instead.

Airlines have operated demand pricing for some time – the price fluctuates depending on the level of demand so passengers on the same flight may well have  paid a wide range of prices for the same seats from the early bird prices to higher last minute prices.

But what about online giants such as Amazon?

Amazon operate ‘dynamic pricing’ which means they will change prices frequently depending on demand and changing circumstances – this can be multiple times in a day but is more usually once or twice a week for many goods.

The weather forecast changes and the prices of some items changes accordingly. Monday and Tuesday are the least popular days for online shopping so there are more bargains to be had whereas the weekend is more popular so the prices go up.

Anything that potentially changes the level of demand can trigger price changes.

So, how do you deal with this?

It can be difficult to know whether prices for what you want are likely to go up or down but it can be advisable to watch the price of items for a while and see if you can get a good deal.

If you find dynamic pricing to be a problem, then you can use price comparison sites and you can try viewing items you want on various days and at different times and note the cheapest day and time.

Also, to avoid the retailer setting a price based who you are and where you live, switch your browsing to incognito mode so as to be anonymous.

Do Share this post on social media – click on the post title then scroll down to the social media share buttons.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Warning – Employer Matches

Numerous emails appear almost every day from employermatch.co.uk and the same messages from careercandy.com and wherejobs.co.uk

The titles of the emails are strange, such as:-

  1. Help Requested
  2. Urgent Tesco Openings in Walton-on-Thames

There is no Tesco in Walton-on-Thames and there isn’t one planned.

  1. Urgent ASDA Employment in Weybridge

There is no ASDA in Weybridge – the nearest is about 10 miles away.

  1. Cabin Crew needed in Walton-on-Thames

No airplanes in Walton-on-Thames that I know of.

Employer Match is not a recruitment agency and does not appear to have any jobs to advertise.

Instead they copy job adverts from recruitment agencies and present them as if their own and send out huge volumes of emails with misleading titles and misleading content.

e.g. one email had a Librarian Assistant as the first job vacancy but if you click on it then the site changes to Retail Choice advertising site, showing an assistant manager job vacancy – nothing to do with libraries.

On the Employer Match website there is a search facility – if you put Library assistant and press search – it tells you there are 1,355 Library Assistant jobs near Weybridge.  I would guess that there are at most half a dozen such job vacancies within the whole of Surrey and it would need hundreds of libraries to employ a total of 1,355 Library assistants.  Weybridge has just one library with only a handful of staff in total.

How does Employer Match make money from their spam emails and website?

That is unknown.

The website claims the company is registered in Poole, Dorset but the home page shows jobs in America and the website seems to be hosted from America.

It does seem to be a strange new form of Marketing that is producing huge amounts of misleading spam messages.

Best avoided.

Do Share this post on social media – click on the post title then scroll down to the social media share buttons.

Fightback Ninja Signature