When you need to make sure the company you’re dealing with is on the up and up, you may have to dig around in their background–just a little bit to ensure everything is above board, or more closely if you feel it’s warranted. Performing a background check can be a simple process or it can be as complex as you need it to be. Following are a few tips on how to do a background check on insurance, savings, and loan providers.
Check Their Reputation
The most logical first step in checking out any company you want to do business with is to get in touch with other businesses or organizations that have had business relationships with the company in question. Ask them about their manner of doing business and whether or not they had any unresolved disputes. Any business’s reputation must be kept pure if they hope to remain in business for long, and there is no better source of information than those with whom they’ve done business previously. Make an appointment to talk to the managers or owners and ask them if that company pays their bills on time and whether or not they have a good credit rating. Find out if any customers have had problems, and how those differences of opinion were resolved. Try and determine how they treat their employees. If a business has repeated contractual issues with its employees, it could affect how they handle your money or how long it takes to resolve an issue. If you have to file an insurance claim, you don’t want to have to wait until a strike or work stoppage is settled before receiving a check.
Get References
You will need to ask the company in question for references, and then contact those people. The questions you’ll need to ask are similar to those you asked of businesses. Do you have any reservations about doing business with that company? How do they treat their employees? Keep in mind that these people have been recommended by the company in question, so you’ll need to weigh carefully the answers they provide and then decide for yourself if they are credible.
Check with the Government
If a company is allowed to conduct business in the United States, they are required to adhere to certain rules and regulations established by local and state governments as well as the federal government. Because any government keeps a written history of the people and institutions they govern, there are records available for any legally operated company. A lot of that information is a matter of public record. The first place you should check with is the county clerk where the business is located. Ask for information that is publicly available regarding that company. Find out if they have had any legal issues and whether or not they have litigation pending. If so, find out the extent and type of litigation, but keep in mind that simply because a company is being sued doesn’t necessarily mean they’re guilty of wrongdoing. However, if they’ve been sued more than once you may want to use caution in dealing with them. You can also contact the Chamber of Commerce in the city in which they do business and inquire about their reputation.
Contacting the Better Business Bureau is also an option. You will be able to find out whether or not the company has had any complaints filed against them. You can also run a check through the Secretary of State’s office in the state in which the company is located. You can do this by using the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) filing system, which will reveal their financial standing in regard to secured loans.
Access to Secure Business Transactions
In addition to accessing the UCC filing system through your state government, you can also find out about a company’s secure business transactions through the United States SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission–providing they are a publicly held company. If they are, their quarterly and annual reports will be available for public scrutiny, as well as letters from their shareholder’s. In addition, there will be quite a bit of other financial information available.
Conduct a Professional Background Check
If you still have questions about the insurance company you’re dealing with or the place you want to put your money or get a loan from, through the information that is available to the general public, then you could choose to have a professional background check performed. A check of this type will go much deeper, and could take a longer period of time to perform–and it wouldn’t be cheap. But it would be thorough.
Where to find a serious private loan?
Find a loan between serious individuals on the internet is possible, just choose the right agencies and formalize the contract.
Can we really find a serious private loan site? The net is full of ads which can seriously be doubted: too good visible scams or offers to be true, where to go when you cannot borrow from someone we know, but that we cannot or we do not want to go through the classic bank loan system?
The specifics of credit between individuals
Credit between individual’s works like a conventional credit, the only difference is that instead of borrowing from a bank, you borrow directly from someone who has money available and wants to grow. Removing the intermediary does not mean that we cannot put a framework in place to regulate these practices. Some sites guarantee the interests of both parties by acting as intermediaries between all lenders and borrowers.
Securing a serious private loan can really be advantageous, as the implementation of credit is based on trust between two people and the conditions of granting will be less rigid than in banks. The speed of processing the request will also be improved because the decision to lend or not depends only on one person.
Write a contract, the basic requirement
Even if the person who lends you money is one of your loved ones, you must formalize the loan by writing and signing a debt acknowledgment. The lender will also have to notify the tax office on which he depends if he lends more than 760 €.
Formalize everything in writing, an oral agreement is worthless: create a depreciation schedule in addition to the debt recognition. This table will allow you to track monthly and monthly repayments made and to come. So everyone knows exactly where they are.
How to recognize a loan between serious individuals?
Do not fall into the traps of ads too enticing if you are looking to borrow! If you are a potential borrower, be realistic in your application, do not lie about your situation (for example, if you are banned banking, tell the lender) and do not accept any offer. If you are asked to pay money before the loan is made or if the interest rate is exaggerated, run away.
Beware of too tempting offers, such as loans for large amounts at 0 rates: people who have spent the time to build up savings will not lend their money for free … Forget also sites classified ads. Instead, turn to sites that specialize in credit between individuals, who will be able to guarantee the interests of both parties.
Choosing the right organization to obtain a serious personal loan
Some sites place online peer-to-peer loan advertisements, but do not verify offers and do not guarantee transactions between lenders and borrowers. It will, therefore, be more vigilant because it often happens that the offers are well-established scams: some people offer loans at very low rates and then ask to pay a sum of money in advance before the loan is not registered in writing.
The Final Solution
There are also a few sites, many rarer that guarantee transactions and provide a real legal framework in which lenders and borrowers can evolve safely. Lenders may be fewer, but at least you are sure to answer a serious personal loan announcement.
