THIS COMPANY WILL NOT OFFER YOU A PROMISED LOAN.
Here at Webtested we know how hard it can be to get a loan with bad credit. There are myriad’s of companies looking to snatch what little money you have left to line their pockets whilst putting you deeper into a hole.
Who are Monetas?
Monetas are a company operated in England and Wales, currently directed by Charles David John Thompson. He also directs ‘Yourmoneygroup‘ which not much can be found out about other than the fact they lost an employment tribunal and were directed to pay their former employee compensation. The setup of Monetas is identical to that of Getfrugal. Getfrugal is however supposedly directed by a ‘Fahad Alvi‘.
At first glance, Monetaslooks like some sort of budgeting application. Slightly different from their other website, Getfrugal. However, that’s probably NOT how you saw Monetas when you first arrived at their website. You probably arrived at a page that looks more similar to the screenshots shown below.
Will Monetas Provide Me With a Loan?
As with many people with low credit ratings, you’re probably passed post the post via sometimes unscrupulous loan brokers. Some can find you niche lenders who will take a risk on you, others will help you end up on website’s like Monetas. Once redirected to Monetas through a loan broker, like Cashkitty, you’ll probably end up on a page similar to this one:
It will direct you to a page that seems as though your loan was declined by the broker, but no worries, Monetas can help, right? Apparently we’re approved for a Spend Booster Loan! Great, they even show us the below terms:
This image would have you think that you’re being offered £359.88 as a loan with no interest and a repayment of £29.99 for 12 months. Identical to that of Getfrugal. A no interest loan sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it is. In this screenshot Monetas says ‘We will carry out a affordability assessment, as set out in our terms’. Currently in their terms there is no mention of any affordability check.
What happens after you ‘confirm identity’?
If you go through and type in your card information which we HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND, you’ll then be redirected to a widget, called Boshhh group, to connect your bank accounts. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this is required to get the loan deposited to your bank account.
After completing this step, you’re then redirected to Boshhh group website and have an amount of money taken from your bank account by Monetas (£0.15 in our case). Then, nothing. You receive no emails, no confirmations of anything nor, more importantly, any loan. If scanning the QR code on your phone to connect your bank, you’re then redirected to a loan company on your phone, in our case LUMO, who did not accept us for a loan. It’s actually hard to determine if LUMO have any credibility at all, seemingly not.
What is ‘boshhh group’?
Interestingly, Boshhhh group looks like a totally different company. Rather interestingly, we found that the company is registered by a ‘Lewis Anthony Charles CAMILLERI‘. Maybe a somewhat similar name to Monetas director ‘Charles David John Thompson‘, but are they connected? Well, we reached out to Boshhh to understand their involvement with Monetas but… they did not reply.
What Are the Monetas Benefits?
The supposed ‘benefits’ are identical to that of Getfrugal, and to be honest, there really isn’t any. We were diving through our search history to try and see which which payment provider Monetas uses to make them aware of their deceptive practice and we were actually redirected to a Monetas page where we were supposedly ‘logged in’.
Your benefits are four links to loan providers which are unlikely to accept you with bad credit anyway and can be found for free online.
For your £29.99 a month, as well as being given the links to four loan companies you’re also given 52 pages of ‘offers’. Except these offers are mostly outdated and/or just affiliate links to line Monetas pockets even more, as if your £29.99 a month wasn’t enough for them already.
Our Investigation
If you’re redirected to Monetas from any loan broker, do not engage. This company DOES NOT offer any loans, but uses wording to suggest that submitting card details to them will obtain you a loan. Infact, the ‘loan’ offered is just how much it costs to have a subscription to this website, £29.99 a month. The subscription offers nothing of any value whatsoever, not even any budgeting application that it seems to suggest.
It is very obvious Monetas is operating very close, if not beyond the border of UK law. We’re doing everything we can to try and make people aware of this companies fraudulent practices. CashKitty is one of the brokers who direct borrowers to the Monetas & Getfrugal websites. We reached out to CashKitty for their thoughts. They did not reply. Cardflo is the payment gateway for Monetas & Getfrugal. After messaging them with our investigation- we’re still awaiting a response. We have also reported the website to the FCA.