THIS COMPANY WILL NOT OFFER YOU A PROMISED LOAN.
Here at Webtestedwe recently did a deep dive into a fraudulently operated company offering potential borrowers loans, called Monetas. After finishing up that article, we noticed another identical website also being pushed by loan broker companies such as Cashkitty called Getfrugal.
What is Getfrugal?
Getfrugal is a website identical to that of Monetas. It’s registered in the UK by an ‘Alvi Fahad‘. We’re starting to suspect that the owners of these two companies are not real people. Fahad also directed one dissolved company, Tenant Reports Services.
Getfrugal has a different homepage look to Monetas. It’s promising some sort of AI-powered tool. Similarly to Monetas however, it’s probably not the page you first arrived at. The page you first arrived at probably looked more like the one below.
Is Getfrugal a loan provider?
Whilst Getfrugal certainly looks as if it is promising you a loan, it is actually doing exactly what it’s copycat website Monetas is doing.
It looks as though the company you applied for your loan through can’t help, but low and behold, Getfrugal can, right? They even show us a very friendly 0% interest loan offer below:
We’re being offered what seems like a £359.88 loan with 0% interest for 12 months. They even mention an affordability assessment, set out in their ‘terms‘, which shows nothing about any affordability assessment. The exact same offer we had from Monetas, but is it the same scam? All we need to do is confirm our identity…
After Confirming Identity
If you type in you card information (please don’t) you then arrive at a ‘boshhh‘ widget where it’s requested that you connect your banks, for some unknown reason.
After that you’re redirected to the ‘boshhh‘ homepage, and if scanning the QR code link your bank to them via mobile, you’re then redirected to another loan service, in our case LUMO. We did not get accepted by LUMO. Infact, LUMO loans is probably another shell scam website linked to these crooks. After ‘confirming identity’ Getfrugal takes some money from your debit card, £0.15 in our case.
Who are ‘BOSHHH’?
Boshhh, whilst looking like a separate company from Monetas and GetFrugal, and having a different director, it’s probably ran by the same group of dishonest people. We contacted Boshhh to ask about their involvement with Monetas and Getfrugal but they did not respond.
Are there any benefits to Getfrugal?
Even though you’re not redirected anywhere after signing up you can access a Getfrugallogin page with your mobile number you used go through your original loan broker. Then, you’re greeted with the exact useless features at Monetas.
Identically to Monetas, you can a dashboard with four links to loan providers (freely obtainable information elsewhere).
Additionally for your £29.99 per month you’re given a ton of outdated ‘Deals’ which are just affiliate links to load the owners of Getfrugal’s pockets even more.
Our Investigation
Getfrugal will not give you any loan whatsoever. If you end up redirected to Getfrugal, exit the website, do not give them any of your payment information. If you give them your payment information, you won’t receive your promised £300+ loan. Infact, you’ll be giving them £29.99 per month for nothing, until you cancel.
Monetas and Getfrugal are clearly ran by the same people even if the names on companies house are different. It’s possible the names or fake or of that of unknowing innocent people or a group of scammers not hiding.
After our investigation we have reached out to all of those helping the scam come together. We reached out to Cashkitty for leading unsuspecting borrowers to their website, they did not reply. We contacted Cardflo, the payment processor for these fraudulent companies with our investigation. Their reply was:
‘Cardflo is a payment technology provider. We provide a range of payment-related technology services, including payment orchestration, 3D Secure solutions, gateway connectivity, routing technology, and other payment infrastructure services to businesses and financial institutions.
We do not own, operate, manage, or control the businesses that use our technology, nor are we responsible for their products, services, marketing activities, or commercial practices.
The responsibility for merchant onboarding, due diligence, underwriting, compliance reviews, and ongoing monitoring rests with the acquiring banks and licensed payment institutions that provide payment processing services to merchants.
As a technology provider, Cardflo’s role is limited to providing software and infrastructure. Any allegations relating to a merchant’s conduct, products, services, or business practices should be directed to the merchant concerned.
We are therefore unable to comment on the allegations raised in your email or on any specific business relationship’.
We have reported the GetFrugal website to the FCA, too. We will provide any updates if and when they arrive.