Scammed personal loan

Hi everyone. I'm posting this shamefully and to hopefully offer up a warning to others. First of all please don't judge me. I typically consider myself a fairly intelligent and independent woman. I graduated summa cum laude from an accredited university and I have a career but none of that helped me when I got desperate and couldn't think clearly.

I applied for a personal loan. I can't remember the name of the website but I think it was themoneystore.com

A day later I received a text telling me that I was approved for a loan up to $5,000.

This is what the first one said:
Hi , Welcome to Community Choice Financials Inc. We have received your application for personal loan and the same has been approved for upto $5000. So, if you are still looking for loan please call us on 614-874-7356 and the associate Loan Officer will be BOBBY GATES (ext-553).
Community Choice Financials

I also received another text from someone else (who I didn't contact) saying I was approved for a loan of $10,000. I deleted that one like an idiot so I can't post details.

I was desperate. My husband is out of work and I just had some serious medical issues and my account was in the negative and my rent was way past due.

Anyway, I (like an idiot) contacted "Bobby Gates" I should have went with my instincts when I called and a message said that the magic jack subscriber was unavailable. But I just couldn't listen to reason because of my desperation.

He had a thick accent and said I was approved for $5,000. My dumbass answered every question he threw at me. Address, name, account number, routing number. Even my MOBILE BANKING LOG IN!!!

He said that they would transfer $1,600 into my bank account to pay for a ppi insurance that secures the loan. And that I wouldn't pay anything out of pocket but the transaction couldn't be done online. And that I'd have to pay the insurance before I could receive my loan.

This is where my reasoning instincts started to kick in.

He said he'd call me back in 15 minutes once the transfer was done.

So I used those 15 minutes to change my log in info. He called me back and said that it was done and that I need to go to Walmart to do a moneygram wire transfer.

I said I couldn't due to my schedule and I just want to cancel everything. He then began to try to convince me to go to Walmart right then because they are open 24/7 and because they had already transferred the money that I would need to send it.

I then told him I had a bad feeling about all of this and that's when he started trying to convince me of his company's legitimacy. I then told him that I'm just going to have my bank cancel/reverse any transfers.

To that he replied "I'm going to go to (insert my address here) and slit your throat" and then hung up.

I then went into my online account and saw 3 mobile deposits of the fakest looking checks had been deposited via the mobile app.

I went to my bank this morning (the next day) as soon as they opened. I told everything to the bank manager and the fraud department. They were able to freeze my account thank god. But would you believe that "Bobby" had the odasity to call me while I was at the bank. The fraud department had me put them on speaker. He acted like he didn't threaten my life the night before and asked if the money was in my account. The bank had me play along a bit. This time he wanted me to get Walmart gift cards. They called the sheriff's office who advised me to block the number and any unknown incoming numbers. The phone number they used was a Dublin,OH but the fraud department traced the IP address to Jacksonville, FL

My bank will be closing my account and opening a new one.

Since blocking the numbers, I've received 2 life threatening voicemails from good ole "Bobby"

I needed to share and get support. I'm just glad I wised up before it was too late but now I have to go through all the stress of everything. Please be aware. Don't be like me.

Sheriffs office can't do anything even with the threats. I did report it to the FTC to hopefully help on their attempts to shut down these scammers.

Thanks for reading

Sorry to hear of your horrific ordeal. If it is of any comfort his threats are just his last desperate attempt to get you to send money. His only interest is to make money and he will want to steer clear of anything else.

Good thing is that as far as I can tell they stopped trying to contact me. I'm just concerned about all the information I gave them. I hope that other people don't fall for it.

Sorry to hear about your experience but also glad to hear you avoided the pain of losing money. Some victims unfortunatly weren't so lucky.

UPDATE: So I've been getting non stop calls from blocked numbers. My carrier isn't able to block them and my phone can't block a number unless there is a number. I think I'm just gonna have to get a new number. I doubt it is a coincidence. No voicemail is ever left but I'm pretty sure it's them or those that they passed my information on to.

Thank for all the support! Glad I found this site.

Got another text. This time from "Alan Walker"


Hi,
First Finance your application for loan has been approved between$3000-$10000
Your loan approval code is MNAK868ND
Awaiting for your quick response.
Call:(937)8670338
Email:[email protected]
Website:www.firstfinance.co
Thank's & Regards
Alan Walker Loan Officer

I'm sorry this is happening to you. You may want to change your phone number. They've probably sold your information or may just be harassing you themselves. Changing your phone number will stop the texts from them.

[email protected]
While claiming to be a loan company in the US the email originate in Pune, Maharashtra, India



Get a loan by phone
FLORIDA : +1 (786) 462-9451 << VoIP number in Miami, FL

Get a loan by chat
FLORIDA : +1 (786) 545-7941 VoIP number in Miami, FL

Get a loan by phone
CALIFORNIA : +1 (909) 666-8307 VoIP number

Get a loan by chat
CALIFORNIA : +1 (909) 582-2119 VoIP number

Our e-mail: [email protected]

Please post the emails that asked for money to be sent. The payment method and receiver information will help others avoid losing money to this criminal.

THANK YOU for this post!
Believe it or not, they're still at it over a year later.
I had applied to a few loan websites a day or two prior to receiving a text very similar to the one you received. I was already pretty skeptical about it but I've been having zero luck in getting approved for a much needed loan so I decided to test it out. I made sure to change my banking password before sharing it with them, just to be extra cautious.
When they told me about the PPI deposit and repayment method I was almost certain it was a scam (it's tough to give up with the potential of finally catching up with debt so close at hand! ) so I decided to do some quick research between calls from them (and checking in on my bank website every couple of mins to ensure none of my settings or accounts had changed)
It took me a while to find this post but I'm so glad I did. I called my bank immediately and told them what had happended. My account is now FROZEN and they have stopped calling me for the moment at least, with no threats yet for my family (my credit score though is another story )

Anyways sorry for the long winded reply I just wanted to say thank you again, you just saved me so much trouble (and $$! )

Edited to add: the phone number they were calling and texting me from is 302-200-0382 which is listed in Deleware