We are probably all familiar with what loans mean: it simply means that money is given to another party in exchange for repayment plus interest. Terms are agreed by each party before any money is advanced. Taking out a loan can be a scary experience – but most of the time it turns out to be a run-of-the-mill process. This is, however, not always the case. Some of the bankers experienced rather strange requests for loans, that we are going to discuss in this article. We promise you; some of them are really funny, so make sure to grab your tissues. (Names might be changed in this article)
Bell Pepper
Jason: “I used to work for a credit union call center. One day, a lady called in asking for a personal loan. Nothing strange up to this point, until I realized what she needed the loan for. The policy of our company was to ask what the funds are for, so that we were sure the customer had a valid reason. I had to ask the lady about the purpose of the loan and she replied: I need to buy a bell pepper for dinner. I answered here request with the explanation that no bank would give her a loan for a bell pepper, but she insisted that she needed the loan. The weirdest thing about this whole story was that I had insight in her account. There was plenty enough for a bell pepper.”
Drivers Licence?
Mary: “I was astonished when I received a request from a man in his early 20s to take out a $60.000 loan for traffic violations in a period of 9 months. When I asked him how he did this, he admitted (almost proudly) that he spends around $50K each year on reckless driving. What confused me most, was the fact that he seemed so proud and had a good credit history. Because of his history he was able to get the loan. When I did some more research, I found out that he was fined most of the time for parking EVERYWHERE: diagonal on the road, sideways and on the road during traffic.”
Chainsaw
Vince: “One day, a man walked into the bank I worked for. He reeked of alcohol, dressed in a white tanktop and short jeans. He went straight up to my desk and didn’t hesitate, he needed a “chainsaw loan.” He later clarified that he didn’t want a loan to purchase a chainsaw, but he wanted the bank to purchase a chainsaw and loan it to him. The man had a terrible credit, which he admitted as well. His plan was to use the chainsaw as collateral to secure the loan. Eventually he wanted to use the chainsaw as a collateral for a loan to buy a chainsaw.”
Rap Career
Dwane: “I once received a call from a young guy, who wanted to borrow $10.000 to buy a rap studio. He had no idea where to buy one and how. Besides that, he had no job, no savings and therefore no money to pay back the loan. He promised me that he would pay $50K back when his rap career took off. Interest rates aren’t that high of course. It was not a deal.”
Theme Park
Julie: “Where do I start? I had multiple strange requests. The fist one was a customer once who wanted a loan to start a theme park. The park would be based around tents, nowhere near any major city. The second one was a man who wanted to secure a loan using his ex-wife’s house as collateral. His reason was that he paid for it, so it was really “his money” anyway. The third customer wanted to start a snow manufacturing and delivery business fro Christmas. However, his idea was to do this in Australia where Christmas happens to be in the summer. It is almost never below 30 degrees..”
Win The Lottery
Jeffrey: “I work in a commercial lending and one day, a lady called and said she wanted a loan for $10K because she knew how to win the lottery. I decided to play along for a minute and asked her to explain her method. Of course, she didn’t want to share her method because then I could do it before her. I wasn’t able to lend her the money unfortunately. But I hope she won the lottery.”