Lion Loans Scam

[VagabondMD]

jfoxcpacfp wrote:

Zaphod wrote:

janettebournes wrote:

My husband and I must be much more anti-social / paranoid than everyone else.

We don’t even bother answering our phones anymore unless we know who is calling.

Everyone else gets routed to voice mail.

If we don’t like what you have to say, # is blocked and we don’t expect to hear from you again.

If you don’t leave a message, # is blocked and we don’t expect to hear from you again.

1 strike policy applies to all

Click to expand…

I have a similar policy. I answer once, if a marketer I simply hang up without saying anything and block the number. Same for marketers that leave a vm.

Click to expand…

I hate being interrupted by unnecessary phone calls. My v.m. states that if i don’t answer, it’s because I don’t recognize your number so leave a msg and I’ll get right back to you. Seems to work. Those who don’t leave a msg get blocked. Is there a reason doctors cannot do the same?

Click to expand...

I am not sure answering vs. not answering is a "doctor" issue. There are times when I am expecting a call or see a number from a familiar location that I mistakenly answer a call that I would be better off not answering. Most calls, especially toll free calls, do not get answered.

Back to my issue, specifically, it appears that there were no soft inquiries on my Experian account between September, 2016 and February, 2017. On Feb 10, 2017, there were about a half dozen inquiries from various internet "payday" loan services, one of which had "Lion Loans" in the name, most had "Clariant" in the name, followed by an alleged application by me to "Cash Central" on February, 14, 2017.

I am not sure what to make of this, where this is going, who the villain is, but I have a feeling that this saga might turn into a guest blog at some point.

My next step will be to report the fraudulent application to Experian and then freeze my Experian reporting account.

[DMFA]

Experian is usually very good at removing fraudulent inquiries. Question is if you need/want to go full-court press on the identity theft front: SEC, SSA, local law enforcement, three bureaus, etc.

[VagabondMD]

An update:

I thought I was done with all of this. Last week I received a letter from Lion Loans, and it was a letter than I normally would drop into the recycling bin. There was no indication that it was of any import. Recognizing Lion Loans on the return address, I opened the letter, and it told me that Lion Loans was willing to accept a lower payment (by debit or cashier's check), if I paid immediately. $2000 vs. $2700 currently on the account.

I have since filed a report with my state's AG office, local police report, and had previously filed fraud reports and frozen credit at the three bureaus. I have had contact with Lion Loans, and they have asked me to provide the police report and file a notarized affidavit with a lot of personal info (ss#, driver's license # and other personal info). My local police are questioning the veracity of these claims and have recommended me not cooperating by giving LL more info.

I finally spoke with their compliance department today and was told that I needed to provide this information for their investigation. They could not share any information about the origin of the loan, and I informed the agent that I was advised to be careful about sharing information with them-- a bit of a stalemate. We compromised with me completing the parts of the affidavit that I was comfortable with and seeing if we could finish up this business.

The agent told me that if I was not cooperative that I could be subject to aggressive collections efforts (a bit of a threat), and I was not happy with the tone of the threat nor the idea of being hassled for someone else's supposed fraudulent loan.

[Kamban]

I am sorry that you re going through all this.

I get many calls via my front desk -from loan agencies, loan providers, stock brokers, telemarketers, survey agencies etc. The most sleazy are the stock brokers who will have Indian names and sound as if I am a personal friend of theirs.

My front desk standard reply is that the doctor is in with a patient and will call you back if you give a name, number and a reason for calling. 99 times out of 100 they do not give the info and all is well. The survey companies are told that the doctor does not do surveys.

I never answer any calls on my cell phone unless I know the number or vaguely have an idea from whom it might be. Now many scam calls have started to be spoofed and made to originate with a local area code.

[chrisCD]

I had noticed my credit score was lower than normal, but not totally abysmal so didn't think much of it. We applied for a car loan and the bank that accepted us gave us pretty high rate and then we got several rejection letters in the mail.

I noticed one letter referenced a long over do account and gave a link to Experian.  I signed up for the free account and discovered a fraudulent inquiry and an account.  I initially filed the report wrong, but Experian helped me get that resolved.  Both were eventually removed as I was a victim of identity theft. Experian said the process may go faster if I reach out the companies.

The bank with the inquiry was actually helpful.  They had a good fraud dept and it was the number that Experian gave me to call so I was comfortable giving them my SS#.  The company with the fraudulent account was not helpful at all.  Couldn't ever get to a real person, but what ever process Experian used, got that resolved.  So at a minimum, take the time to monitor your reports.

I would be hesitant to provide personal info to Lions especially when they make a veiled threat.  You are the victim here and they should be a bit more sympathetic.  But, if you can determine via the credit bureau that they are legit, you should be fine.  Experian told me companies go through quite a vetting process before they can access credit information.

cd :O)