LinkedIn is an excellent tool and social network and as I’ve previously mentioned in other blog posts I highly recommend that everyone should maintain a LinkedIn profile if job seeking and it is also a highly useful resource for learning and sharing whilst employed as well.

Disturbing Practice by Pay Day Loan Employees on LinkedIn

Of late I’ve come across a disturbing development on LinkedIn; first I’d like to recognise that this isn’t a practise perpetrated by LinkedIn, but by enterprising pay day loan company employees! Basically these loan companies are creating LinkedIn profiles which have a normal person’s name and a photo, but the majority of the profile is advertising for the loan company and a link through to their website.  These profiles then send out spam connection requests to actual LinkedIn users like myself and are also liking your LinkedIn activity posts to garner good will and perhaps attract people to view/connect with their profiles.

Unfortunately I made the mistake of accepting one of the connection requests on the iPhone app as the name sounded familiar to me.  The iPhone app doesn’t show as much information as the full LinkedIn site and in the past I’ve often accepted a connection without really checking his or her profile.  A few days later I realised my mistake when I received more spam connection requests from profiles with similarly named loan companies as their current employer and I started receiving likes on my activity updates from these and other pay day loan style profiles. I promptly went onto the full LinkedIn website and found out how to remove a connection and flag a profile as spam to rectify the situation and hopefully stem the tide of further spurious spam connection invitations – I’m still getting a few.

This is a completely unprofessional practise on the part of the pay day loan companies and the profile owners.  I am supportive of businesses marketing their services to potential customers in legitimate advertising and forums, however, there are limits and rules governing how and when they do so.  LinkedIn does not condone the use of your individual profile for blatant advertising and we as the LinkedIn community have a duty of care to report this abuse of the system when we see it happening.

What angers me more though is that this practise is being perpetrated by an industry that I have absolutely nothing good to say about as it takes advantage of ill-informed and desperate people and muddies the good name and reputation of financial services as a whole, where there are reputable companies and institutions who provide valid and vital services to our community.

All I can say is that it was a really bad tactic for these companies to target me; all they’ve done is draw my attention to their further unprofessional practise and spurred me on to add my voice to the growing cacophony of the call to regulate and stamp out this reprehensible business practise of what amounts to legalised loan sharking.

My Advice

1. Don’t accept any LinkedIn invitations without first checking out the connection’s profile to be sure that they are who they say they are, even if you recognise the name and profile picture.
2. If the invitation is spam wait until you can view the full LinkedIn website and report the invitation as spam.  The option to do this is only available on the full LinkedIn website and is shown as a third option after accept and ignore.  This will inform LinkedIn so that they can deal with the situation and hopefully deter the individual behind the profile from doing it again.
3. If you see a spam profile visit the full LinkedIn website and view the profile and then use the flag a profile as inappropriate option.  Again this will inform LinkedIn so that they can deal with the individual responsible for the profile and deter future unprofessional practise by the individual.
4. If you do inadvertently accept a spam invitation visit the full LinkedIn website and remove the connection in your contacts page and flag a profile as inappropriate.
5. Don’t, whatever your circumstances or problem take out a pay day loan, it really isn’t worth the terrible consequences that you’ll face if you default on paying back the loan and the extortionate interest rates you will incur.  It might not seem like it, but you do have options.
6. There’s always a better option than dealing with these pay day loan companies and I’ve listed some sites and organisations below that have your best interests at heart and can offer practical advice and support in getting you back on track with your finances.
7. If you know of anyone considering taking out a Pay Day Loan encourage them to learn as much as they can before doing anything and point them in the direction of alternatives that might be better for their long term financial health!

About Pay Day Loans

For those of you unfamiliar with pay day loans they are short term loans due to be paid back between a week and a month that are given on the back of proof of your wages/employment for usually small amounts, anything up to £1000 and don’t require a standard credit check that high street lenders use.

On first look they seem like a great idea; a short loan of a week or so to tide you over until pay day, but delve a little deeper and you realise that they charge extortionate interest rates of APRs in the thousands, compared with the average credit card which has an APR of between 17 and 40% and the average high street loan of around 9%.  These loans are targeted at people who are ill informed and desperate, taking advantage of individuals who are unable to obtain regular credit and most in need of professional financial guidance!  What’s worse is that often these companies are not following the standards of the Irresponsible Lending Guidance (ILG) required of all companies licensed to provide consumer credit under the Consumer Credit Act (CCA).

Lots of people who take out these loans are already in financial trouble and fall into a debt spiral as they can’t afford to pay back an initial loan and have to keep taking out further loans to pay back the balance and continually increasing their overall debt.  People can end up being unable to cover to the interest let alone the original sum.  Stories of people borrowing an initial £100 and owing up to £20,000 are sadly not uncommon, with many people taking out multiple loans from different pay day lenders and ‘rolling up’ their loans four or more times with individual lenders. Rolling up is the practise of taking out an additional loan with the provider to cover the original debt and the interest accrued.

These companies may have a professional veneer of snappy TV advertising and slick websites and sometimes shop fronts, but please do not be fooled.  We’ve all heard of loan sharks and how they are best to be avoided, well Cambridge English Dictionary’s definition of a loan shark is “a person who charges very large amounts of money for lending money to someone else” and that’s exactly what these pay day loan companies do.  The aggressive debt collection activities of these companies is also not dissimilar to the bullying tactics of the traditional loan shark as evidenced by the horror stories reported in the press and on the internet.

Before Taking out a Pay Day Loan

If you are interested in learning more about pay day loans or are considering taking one out I suggest reading this very useful article from money.co.uk: Warning: Payday Loans Can Seriously Damage your Wealth and checking out The Guardian Payday Loans section on their website.

The industry of pay day loans is under review by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and has further referred the pay day lending market to the Competition Commission citing “…concerns the OFT has about deep-rooted problems with the way competition works”.  The OFT’s Payday Lending Compliance Review Report had some shocking key findings including: “38 of the 50 lenders we inspected failed to comply with at least one of the complaint handling rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service”.  You can find out more at the OFT’s Payday lending compliance review pages on their website.

If you are struggling with your finances there is lots of information on the internet at sites such as money.co.uk, Money Super Market, MoneySavingExpert.com and The Money Advice Service.

The following organisations offer free and independent services to help you to get your finances back on track: Citizens Advice Bureau, National Debtline, GOV.UK, Step Change and Debt Advice Foundation.

You can also read about other peoples’ sad pay day loan horror stories here:

Bude & Beyond: Payday Loans – It’s A Horror Story!

Money Saving Expert: My Payday loan horror

Mirror: Suicide dad hounded for cash as he lies in hospital

The Consumer Action Group: Pay Day Loans Forum

Mail Online: Father dies…after being hounded by payday loan companies….

Mail Online: Rugby league player…hanged himself after getting into huge debt with payday loan companies.

The Sun: Payday loan debts killed our son, 18

Today, however, the spammers have hit an all time low with me and I’m sorry, but I have to make a final stand that this is not okay!  Last time I checked I still had more brown hair than grey, arthritis hadn’t set in and I was still a long way in the right side of 60 and yet I received this…..

Earth to spammers although I’m no longer in the early flush of youth and no longer as svelte as I used to be at that age I’m not so fat or so old or both that I cannot walk without the aid of a mobility scooter and my finances are healthy enough that I don’t need any financial aid for one either.

Yours sincerely

An offended Wealie x

The basic premise is that a high up official has died leaving a load of cash in off shore accounts that cannot be accessed, except by someone like you and you just have to give over your bank details so they can transfer the money to your account and then you get to keep a large percentage of the cash….yeah right!

Well it seems some enterprising scammer has breathed new life into the old scam, by highlighting the old scam!  You can read for yourself, I received the email below yesterday.

Happy scam avoidance.

Wealie x

ATTENTION:

The BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION in United Kingdom, Nigeria, Benin Republic, Ghana and Bokinafaso received a report of scam against you and other British/US citizens and Malaysia, etc. whom the country of UK, Nigeria/Benin, Bokinafaso and Ghana have recompensed you due to meeting held with four countries Government and the world high commissions against fraud activities by the four country Citizens.

Your name was among those scammed as listed by the United Kingdom Financial Services Authority (UKFSA).A compensation has been issued out in ATM CARD to all the affected victims and has been already in distribution to all the bearers. Your ATM CARD REF(# TNY/478593G9/19) was among those that was reported undelivered as at last Friday and we wish to advise you to see to the instructions of the Committee to make sure you receives your ATM CARD immediately for your usage.

The United Kingdom Financial Services Authority further told us that the use of Nigeria Couriers and the Benin was abolished due to interception activities noticed in the above mentioned courier services in Benin, Nigeria and Ghana and thereby have made a concrete arrangement with the WIDESERVE COURIER SERVICES for a safe delivery to your door-step once the beneficiary meets up the demand of the conveyance.

Due to the security, we ask that you keep all information confidential until your claim will be processed and your money remitted to you.

THIS IS PART OF OUR SECURITY PROTOCOLS TO AVOID UNWARRANTED ABUSE OF THIS PROGRAM BY SOME UNKNOWN PARTICIPANTS.

THE BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION has discovered a huge number of double claims due to beneficiaries informing close friends relatives, attorneys and third parties about their Awards. As a result of this, this close friends relatives, attorneys and third parties try to claim the prize on behalf of the real recipients.

We advise that you do the needful to make sure the UKFSA dispatches your recompense on Friday. You are assured of the safety of your ATM CARD and availability and be advised that you should stop further contacts with all the fake government officials online who in collaboration scammed you. Call me at: +44-7024074868 immediately to check if the delivery date suits you.

Your Full Name:………………….
Your Delivery Address………………..
Your phone Number………………….
Your occupation ……………………

Yours in Service,
Mr Andrew Lloyd CMG MBE
CONSULAR/DIPLOMAT
BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION
NIGERIA HIGH COMMISSION, 9, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE,
LONDON WC2N 5BX, UNITED KINGDOM

I’m pretty sure that’s not your real name, but as your IP address is either 61.152.188.143 or 222.73.218.233 and your email address ghfhfjhj@gmail.com are the only thing that do not change from comment to comment (aside from your somewhat repetitive phrases), it seems this is the only name I have for you.  Perhaps, for simplicity’s sake I’ll just call you “G” as I’m not sure I’ll get the pronunciation of ghfhfjhj right!

Now G, I just wanted to write you a little letter as I’m a wee bit concerned; I’m getting the impression that there’s something a little bit off with you and that perhaps your comments are not as sincere as you’d have me believe. Now I know your grasp of the written English language is lacking, to say the least, but I’m assuming that you either didn’t have much of a formal education or that perhaps English is not your first language.  However, there really is no excuse for not getting your comments right when you use very basic, short phrases that you repeat with alarming frequency.  Surely you have had enough time to practice getting them right by now?  I mean seriously G, how hard would it be to change:

“Excuse for that I interfere ?I understand this question. It is possible to discuss.”

to:

“Excuse my interference, but I understand your question and wonder if it would be possible to discuss it with you?”

Perhaps I’m being too harsh, perhaps the worlds of pandora jewellery and replica swiss watches are far more complicated than my little mind could imagine and therefore in the cut and thrust of fake watches and pandora beads there just isn’t time to learn the basics of English?  Your fingers are in other pies too, such as abercrombie and fitch hoodies, but primarily it’s the beads and watches websites that you seem to comment from on my Sky Dancing article.

And that brings me on to one of my primary concerns about you G.  I mean what is it about the article Sky Dancing that has led you to leave more than one hundred comments on it?  I mean one or two are flattering, but over a hundred is just freaky, you left 22 in just two days.  The number of comments is even more perplexing when you consider that Sky Dancing is such a short post and mainly a poem and picture.  There’s no big debate, so why the constant messages to “..Let’s discuss it. Write to me in PM, we will talk.” I’m assuming you mean write to you in a private message rather than writing you in the pm rather than am; as being unsure of your location I couldn’t be accurate as to what your time zone is and indeed whether you meant your pm or mine.  It just gets too confusing all round!

Now I’m sorry G, but I have to ask….Do you have a split personality?  ’Cause you can’t seem to make up your mind what you think about Sky Dancing.  today at 12.50 pm I was and I quote “The authoritative message, is tempting…”, (BTW kudos on spelling authoritative right!), but at 11.06 am you were telling me to “Be not deceived in this respect.”, (Gone all Shakespearean like on me now huh?), quite what you think I might be deceived about is beyond me, but that’s another topic and I digress.  At 8.22 am this morning you were all for flattering me “Bravo, this brilliant phrase is necessary just by the way” – I have to ask, which phrase, you never say and you’ve put that comment at least 10 times!  However you are not universally flattering in your comments, in fact you’re downright contradictory and confrontational, for example at 5.56 am today (boy you start early!) you told me “In my opinion you are mistaken. Write to me in PM, we will talk.” Again, you never tell me how I’m mistaken and you’ve added that comment a fair few times too!  Well I ask you G, if you were the one receiving these kinds of mixed messages on a regular basis from someone you’d never met would you want to send them a private message?……your silence speaks volumes!

Are you perhaps related to hfjsdfh, whose email address is hfjsdfh@gmail.com, IP address 222.73.218.225, let’s call him “H”.  H is big into the tattoo market and is often commenting “Excuse for that I interefere ?But this theme is very close to me. Is ready to help.” amongst other nonsensical and irrelevant phrases.  To be frank G, I don’t think I really need the help, but don’t tell H, I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Anyway G, I just wanted to check that you were “okay” and to let you know that I don’t think this relationship is going to grow into the kind that has me “pm’ing” you (in the am or pm) on a regular basis, in fact if I’m honest I’m not ever going to pm you.  I wouldn’t want to string you along, that just isn’t my style, best to feel the pain now before you become too attached to the idea of a pm relationship with me.  Should you continue to comment on Sky Dancing (I have little doubt of this not being the case), then your comments alas will always fall into my spam filter, where I will giggle, shake my head and wonder at the mind behind them for a second or two, before permanently deleting them.  I wish you luck with your beads, watches and hoodies, but to be honest I’m not into beads, I don’t wear a watch and abercrombie and fitch just isn’t my style, so won’t be checking out your no doubt mal/spyware laced websites, with the occasional virus gem.

Best wishes and good luck with the spamming!

Wealie x

Some other funny Blog posts you might like

I’ll add to this list as I find blog posts that tickle me and hopefully tickle you too!