Loan companies listing themselves as credit unions

SPinDerbyshire

Hello everyone.

I'm a social policy co-ordinator with a local CAB and one of our advisers recently alerted me to a local directory that was listing a number of payday lenders as 'Credit unions'. Obviously this is a bit of a worry as it is potentially misleading to many of our vulnerable clients.

I was wondering if anybody else had come across lenders misrepresenting themselves like this. Perhaps some people on here have been misled?

Apples2

Bound to happen. As the popularity of Credit Unions continues to rise, all the scammers will jump on the bandwagon.

Same thing happens with Movie releases, a big name movie is released on DVD, followed by a dozen variants of similar sounding names to fool punters

Transformers - Transmorphers
The Da Vinci Code - The Da Vinci Treasure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockbuster

Tixy

Did you try contacting the local directory to point it out to them?

If its just a commercial directory thats selling advertising space they probably don't care who advertises is what section, but it could be worth a shot.

sixx

I had money taken out my account by green leaf they took 49 pound but we have never heard of them or signed anything luckly I noticed it the same day and theme bank have recalled the money cancelled my card and are sending me a new card out also I was out in contact with the fraud department who is going to investigate this matter

SPinDerbyshire

Update: Had a positive response from The Local Data Company, who were not aware that 'credit union' has a specific definition, and had therefore listed these companies in what they felt was the most appropriate category. Clearly they have proper regard for the integrity of their database, and I'm happy to report that they have corrected this error. There is another company from whom I have yet to hear, and no doubt there are others out there I will learn about in due course. My hope is that they will follow this example.