With over 30 years’ experience, we at Auto & General have seen our fair share of financial scams. It is important to us to assist South Africans in making financial decisions that help rather than hurt them. That’s why we have put together a list of warning signs of fake personal loan offers and how you can tell the difference between us and the fraudsters.

Auto & General personal loans

You can apply for a personal loan directly through the Auto & General website here. You will have the option to take out a loan of between R1 000 and R250 000 – no more and no less (credit check dependent, of course). You can repay this over a period of between 12 and 60 months, depending on how you structure your loan deal. Because we offer a dependable service, your interest rate will never change during the loan term and we are upfront about how much your monthly repayments will be.

To apply online for a personal loan through Auto & General, you will need the following:

• A valid South African ID or driver’s licence
• You must be 18 years or older
• Have a bank account
• Be employed and earn at least R2 000 per month. You will need to provide proof of your income

Fake personal loans

There are many warning signs to look out for in personal loan scams; Auto & General will never do any of these.

• Scammers may use a generic email address like Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail, and not a company address
• Criminals may ask you to pay fees upfront. Auto & General includes all policy and admin fees in your monthly repayments
• Personal loans exceeding R250 000 are rare and we don’t offer you more than this amount
• A fake offer or website may have numerous spelling and grammar errors. At Auto & General, we pride ourselves on offering a professional service to our customers, which includes good spelling and grammar in all communications
• Because a criminal may pretend to be a legitimate financial services provider, they might copy a company’s logo; this will often appear blurry or squashed. We only use high definition images of our logo

How to protect yourself against fake personal loans

Always read the terms and conditions whenever you take out a loan. With legitimate companies, these protect you and are heavily regulated by the law. We understand that it can be time-consuming to read them, but this is often where scammers hide fees that you unwittingly agree to.

If you see any of the above warning signs when considering a personal loan through Auto & General, please get in touch with us right away on 0861 877 775 so that we can investigate and take legal action against the criminals.

Auto & General loans are administered and provided by RCS, a registered credit and financial services provider.