I am a 25 year old naive young woman who was in need of a personal loan to get my finances in order. I filled out a couple loan applications online for $8000.00. I received a phone call from a woman named Shirley Miller that worked at Progressive Lending and she congratulated me on being approved for the amount of $8000.00!!!
She then informed me that because of my poor credit history, I would need to pay 4 months in advance before I could receive the loan. The total came to about $975.00, I had that much in savings so I decided to go for it. I faxed her a copy of my drivers license, social security card, and a pay stub. She then emailed the "loan agreement" which I looked over and signed and faxed over.
The morning that was scheduled for me to make my payment, I called Shirley and she informed me that I would need to pay via a money gram. I really didn't think twice about it. She gave me the name of Brenda Whitee and the location of Hamilton Ontario so I made my initial payment within an hour of the phone call. The money was supposed to be transferred within 4-6 hours so I waited.
Needless to say, the money did not make it in my account so I called Shirley and she informed me that another $600.00 would be needed to transfer the money from the lender's Cayman account into mine??? RED FLAGS went up and I started asking questions and I must say, Shirley convinced me to make another payment via money gram to Brenda Whitee in Hamilton Ontario because the $600 would be refunded according to Shirley.
Another 4-6 hours passed by and the money didn't show up so I started FINALLY doing some investigating and found an article naming Progressive Lending and describing everything I went through and it ultimately being a scam.
I have contacted "Progressive Lending" on several occasions, but they always hang up on me when they learn my name. I just wanted to pass the word on about this "company" because even though I am young and naive, it could happen again to someone else.
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