Stanger resident Doug Millican is warning North Coasters not to be taken in by sms messages offering cheap loans at 3% from Liberty Financial Loan Solutions.

Firstly, no such company is registered in South Africa but countless people are being taken in because the name sounds similar to the reputable company, Liberty Holdings Limited.

This is a classic ‘advance fee’ scam. If you do fall for it and pay them, the scam artist will continue to string you along until you run out of money.

Pensioner Millican, who is 72 years old, first paid R1 250 for a supposed ‘lawyer documentation fee’ to secure a loan of R10 000. He was promised that this money would be refunded to him in three working days.

“They sounded very professional and they were very accommodating, but then they said that the South African Revenue Service has confirmed my loan but that I needed to pay an additional R1 990 before they could release the money to me. Now I know how the South African Revenue Service works and that is when I realised I had been conned!”

Millican took the request to a SARS office and they confirmed that he had indeed been scammed.

“The police told me that these operations are usually run by Nigerian syndicates,” said Millican.

Consumer Watchdog says look out for these signs:

• If it is too good to be true, it probably is. No lender will ever offer you loans at an interest rate of 3%.
• No legitimate lender approaches total strangers offering them loans via sms or email.
• No legitimate lender or financial enterprise uses a free Gmail address as their primary email address.
• Does the company really exist? Real companies have offices with landlines, not just the South African cellphone numbers.