Loan Application Spam

Usually Gmail does a great job at keeping spam out of my Gmail inbox, but this morning I found an unsolicited email that looked like perhaps it was meant for someone else, supposedly for a loan application I had made:

Hi,

Welcome to Statforge Finance!!

Thank you for applying loan with Statforge Finance.

As per the telephonic conversation, please find attached the company brochure and list of required documents.

Please find below the list of documents which you need to submit as a primary and secondary identification proof.

1. Primary Identification Proof (Driver’s License or Copy of the passport)
2. Address proof (Any utility bill under your name. Most recent is preferred)
3. Income Proof (Recent 3 Months of bank statement/Pay stubs/Tax Documents)

In case of any further clarification please revert on this email or feel free to reach us back on our Toll Free number 1-855-892-0516.

Please submit all the required documents on our email or fax us on 1-810-222-7376 in order to proceed further.

We are happy to help you.

Thanks & Regards,
Communication Department,
Statforge Finance US LLC
Contact No: 1-855-892-0516
Fax No: 1-810-222-7376
Email: info@statforgefinance.com
Website: https://www.statforgefinance.com/

I had never heard of this company, let alone contacted them for a loan (I don’t live in the US).

Sometimes I receive mail meant for people with a similar address, so I wanted to check out if this was perhaps legitimate, but the more I looked the more I found that was odd about it.

To start with, the email wasn’t addressed to anyone by name, nor was it signed by anyone by name. “Thank you for applying loan” is broken English. This matched up with a line in the email header that mentioned an IP address in India:

x-originating-ip: [175.111.128.90]

I had a look at the website listed in the mail footer. The “About Us” page stated:

Statforge Finance loans are best-received and utilized by our customers when they are able to easily understand the loan terms and determine whether the product is the correct fit for their needs.

Searching Google for that line, without the company name, also found the same wording on a couple of other websites, e.g.

Ventura Financials loans are best-received and utilized by our customers when they are able to easily understand the loan terms and determine whether the product is the correct fit for their needs.

and

LOANRAFT finance loans are best-received and utilized by our customers when they are able to easily understand the loan terms and determine whether the product is the correct fit for their needs.

Web contents ripped-off from other websites is never a good sign, but sometimes it’s not straightforward to tell whether a site is a legitimate original or a dodgy clone. So I looked at all three sites (there may be more).

These were the contact details for “LOANRAFT”:

Give us a call
855 955 9655
Mail us
info@loanraftfinance.com
FAX
3023518834

855 955 9655
Address: Delaware Avenue , Wilmington, DE 19801
Email: info@loanraftfinance.com

Notice the absence of a number on the street address. Like the other two companies it uses an 855 free dial phone number with a physical area code for the fax number. The domain is registered through GoDaddy, with the registrant hidden:

Domain Name: loanraftfinance.com
Registry Domain ID: 2283058202_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2019-07-09T16:51:23Z
Creation Date: 2018-07-06T22:55:47Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-07-06T22:55:47Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry
Registrant Name: Registration Private
Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
Registrant Street: DomainsByProxy.com

Contact details for Statforge Finance:

info@statforgefinance.com
Greenfield Rd, Oak Park, MI 48237
Statforge Finance US LLC
Contact No: 1-855-892-0516
Fax No: 1-810-222-7376

Again no number on the street address, 855 free dial and a physical area code for the fax. However, the 810 area code does not include Oak Park, MI which instead uses 248 and 947.

The domain is also registered via GoDaddy, only two months earlier and the registrant is also cloaked:

Domain Name: statforgefinance.com
Registry Domain ID: 2259908468_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2019-05-13T20:06:35Z
Creation Date: 2018-05-04T17:19:55Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-05-04T17:19:55Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry
Registrant Name: Registration Private
Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC

And this is the third one in the set:

Green Valley Parkway,
Henderson, NV 89074
+1 (855) 850 7390
info@venturafinancials.com
Fax: 13033747343

No number on the street address, 855 free dial plus physical area code for the fax.

It is also registered via GoDaddy, in the same month as loanraftfinance.com:

Domain Name: venturafinancials.com
Registry Domain ID: 2416866824_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2019-07-25T21:31:33Z
Creation Date: 2019-07-25T21:31:32Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-07-25T21:31:32Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry
Registrant Name: Registration Private
Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC

Looking at who hosts email for the three different domains:

loanraftfinance.com. 3600 IN MX 0 loanraftfinance-com.mail.protection.outlook.com.
venturafinancials.com. 3600 IN MX 0 venturafinancials-com.mail.protection.outlook.com.
statforgefinance.com. 2858 IN MX 0 statforgefinance-com.mail.protection.outlook.com.

They are all using Microsoft’s Outlook mail infrastructure. This is also where my initial sample email was sent from.

While I don’t know yet what exactly these people are up to, I would advise anyone who received a loan offer via spam to steer well clear of such offers.

11 thoughts on “Loan Application Spam

  1. I just received a call from them and you are 100% correct! I am in search of a loan and because I have a score of only 670 (Low According to today’s market unfortunately, but I’m trying!) But because of my score and the amount I need, I did a search on line and I did get burned out of $457.91 last week and that’s being worked on by the Federal Fraud Prevention Task Force as we speak! So back to this,.. So as they introduced themselves, I asked them for straight forward information to validate who they were and when I asked for the address, they wouldn’t give me a street number of any kind! I told them that they have to have a street number for 911 purposes first of all and secondly that this gives people their precise location. This was a person of India speaking language or accent and was hard to understand by the way. So when I told them what had happened to me previously and.that I had a phone call today with an Agent Landers from the above mentioned Task Force, they hung the phone up with a quickness! So since I had been scammed before, this pissed me off and so I called back and no answer! So I blocked my number and they answered and I told them who I was and click up! Gone! Definitely a scam! It’s awesome how you went through the steps you did, and thank you for the warning! I’ll back you on this 1Million %!! Total SCAM!!

  2. Samething happen to me accept they called me and then sent me the email. I am always getting scam calls and emails it’s a shame. Thanks for your information. I did some research of my own and came across your information. And I was relieved that I didn’t fall for this scam. Thank you very much.

  3. Thanks for taking the time to warn people. I got an offer too good to be true ($100,000 unsecured loan at 2.99% fixed for 15 years). They wanted my ID, copy of tax returns etc etc
    I almost took the bait until i decided to google it and found your site. God bless you.

  4. Thanks Joe I too have received an offer in the exact same format . I’m not very tech savy so searching ip addresses and the like are not in my wheelhouse of expertise . I was almost tempted but decided to do a littler more research on basics like addresses and google maps all revealed nothing of any significance. I did come across your blog on this matter which is just what I was looking for I even learned a few new tips on researching things like this.

  5. I received a phone call from this company, Statforge Finance, this morning asking for the same three documents. I sent them the docs but did not give my drivers license number or SS #. Not doing that. Supposedly this company will finance 30K for 7 years for $380 per month. I was wary so I began searching the net and thankfully found you. Many thanks.

  6. Outstanding research – these guys have been calling me non-stop, clearly from India. Not even sure how they got my private work cell, but have my suspicions. Thanks for taking the time to hunt this down for us! Not even sure they can be blocked as the incoming number and exchange is different each time. Now just ignoring their calls but they are definitely persistent.

  7. They are operating from India below is the address
    First Floor And Second Floor D-91,
    Industrial Area Phase 7, Mohali Punjab 160055
    Phone : +91 781 493 9472
    Email : info@skiralservices.com
    Website: skiralservices.com

    Initially they were calling on behalf of idirectfinance.com
    After that behalf of novafinanceservices.com
    After that they used name of pulsefinancials.com then they used Ventura financial.com now they are using statforgefinance.com
    The agents who are calling usa people from skiralservices, they are not aware of this scam. I have evidence against the persons who are using these agents.

  8. I too was contacted by phone by a woman who spoke with an Indian accent. She wanted my address which I would not give. Then I asked her how she got my number and was told my bank (!)! had done that since I had been turned down for a loan. Became suspicious. Asked her to email me info. It never came. I was contacted two more times by two different men. Asked again to be sent info. When it finally did I wrote an email saying I was not interested. The email disappeared. Tried again thinking I had deleted it inadvertently but again it disappeared. Finally decided the whole thing was starting to look mightily like a scam. Once I investigated found blogs confirming that indeed they are fraudulent.. Thank you all for your blogs!
    Saved my askmenotwhat

  9. I just got my first call.
    Only info given thus far is my email address. Is there someone I should contact to “investigate” . As I am willing to “play along” to stop and or Jail those that prey on people in need.

  10. Hello.. I also had a call from these people say they was from statforge finance an that I was approved for a 30.000 dollar loan as well. That my payment would be 380.00a month over a 7 yr period. I didnt send anything even though my daughter said arent you getting together the documents that they need. Which was my id.bill preferred utility bill in my name for my address verification.bank statement for the past 3 month’s. It was a women that called me(forgot the name she used) she had a strong Asian accent.she went over everything that I would need to get the loan. I told her my daughter was living with me an my utility bill was in her name so she said to use medical bill or something with my name to verify address. Then after I hung up it wasn’t even 5 minutes another call came in another women saying that I had to have my bank sta for the past 3 month’s showing that my spouse support went direct deposit. She also had a strong Asian accent but it wasnt the one that called originally. I have almost been scammed before but I am one of them that thinks if it sounds to good to be true. That its not real. I started checking it out as well. I couldn’t find the email that they said they sent so they texted me details instead the phone that came through on the text is 678 616 9252 . I always check the area code that comes in. I run it through Google. I received my call Nov 26th . I was just thinking about all this earlier an Googled the name statforge finance company an that’s when I came across all of your all comments. I was just curious because I still had the text messaged they had sent an just thought I would check it out further. I have almost fallen victim for this kind of BS before so I’m very leary when it is something I hadn’t applied for or if it is something THAT sounds to good to be true. Thank you for everything you found out now if they only start getting something done about all this craziness that goes on. Online an now they are calling my private cell phone. How they got my number I will never know. I never send any documents or anything. Thank goodness. That’s a big loan amount for someone to just call out of the blue to ask someone about. They dont sound like they are to bright asking someone to take out the high amount of a loan. Put all the scamming asses in prison is what needs to be done. Thanks again Debbie

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