"Well how else am I supposed to buy myself a trip to Mars?"
1. Work in wealth management, had a client request a 'loan' from her trust fund. She was attending college and flunking out, she wanted to BUY the private school and fire all the teachers who were 'plotting against her'. Sadly that request was denied.
2. A long time ago I had a temp job in the credit dept of a catalog ordering company. This was prior to omnipresent online credit card use, so large orders phoned in from the catalog were treated as loans. We would pull a credit report and assess the situation.
One guy's order tripped the limits and he was sent my way. Hmm he wants to order ... 2000 window air conditioners? That's very expensive, and seemed odd because if you are a home developer or a retail store and need a lot of inventory, you buy bulk. My catalog company sold to the public.
So I start digging and he lives in Georgia. I looked it up on a map, middle of nowhere. His address is something something trailer court. OK. Also not good.
Bankruptcy declared ... yesterday! lol and the history gets worse as you go back.
So I kill his order and send him the standard letter, and think nothing of it. Until a few months go by. The letter I sent him instructs to call with questions, which is silly, because I can't give out any info on the phone, anyway. Regardless, he calls. I answer the phone. He starts screaming. He starts by screaming. I don't know who he is or what he wants yet. But this is par for the course.
I get him simmered down and am talking to him about why he can't order 2000 air conditioners, without really saying why. He's acting all indignant as if he doesn't have no job and doesn't live in a mobile home and didn't just declare bankruptcy, and wasn't trying to sneak in one more order before the paperwork is filed (he wouldn't have to pay back the "loan" for 2000 air conditioners).
So he gets mopey and says, "aw durn. I was hoping to cool off mah yurd. muggy down here. and hot as a anything."
His plan was to plug in 2000 air conditioners and air condition the outside.
3. Once had a guy try to get a loan to start his business of home pharmaceutical sales.
But here's the kicker: he had (Continued)
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But here's the kicker: he had two previous convictions for hard drugs.
At that point it's like he's not even trying to be clever.
4. Kind of an anti-loan but customer comes in saying they wanted to discuss their car loan.
In reality, once we started discussing the customer tossed the keys and said "It's yours, now stop calling" and left.
5. Oh where to start. Had one customer who wanted to borrow funds to start a theme park based Around tents, no where near other people, with projections that between 600,000 -800,000 people would attend per year. Another customer wanted a loan using his ex wife's house as collateral / on the basis that he had paid for it so it was really his money anyway.
Third customer wanting to borrow funds to start a snow manufacturing and delivery business for Christmas (in rural Australia, where Christmas is held in summer and is rarely under 30 Celsius) Fourth customer wanting to buy a Range Rover while on Centrelink (state welfare) with a non-payment period because she "could use the car to meet someone who could pay for It"
The list goes on.
6. I worked at a call center for credit union. I would tell people balances, take loan applications, etc. So, an elderly man would spend hundreds of dollars a week at a liquor store spending everything in his account. He would call up, obviously drunk, wanting his account balance and wanting to know why his debit card was declined. Well, he spent all his money at the liquor store. So, he would ask for a loan for more money (probably to buy more alcohol.) Because of the law or whatever, we were not allowed to decline him for applying for a loan. So, we had to fill out a loan application, just for him to be not be approved for it obviously. He would apply for loans once, even twice a month. Never approved. I honestly think he was drunk all the time and never remembered applying for loans.
Finally, after, I think a year of this, this issue eventually made it's way up to the head people of the credit union and they decided they would have him come in...with a family member, and discuss his account. I think they had an intervention with him and made a family member present just in case this guy was suffering from dementia and needed family to take over his financials from him (a la power of attorney, etc.) From what I hear, it went good. I never heard of him applying for a loan again, to my knowledge. If he did ever call in again, he was suppose to be sent to a manager for another discussion over the phone.
Not really an absurd reason as it is a sad one.
7. I had three guys come in asking for a loan to buy gasoline. They wanted to buy a ton of gas, store it and resell it after the price went up. They had charts with girls in bikinis on it, and I think they (Continued)
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thought they'd be speaking with a man. It got real weird after that but none the less, I declined their loan request to buy gasoline.
8. I had a young male non-client come set up an appointment for a business loan with a teller. The scheduler notes alluded to an engineering firm so I assumed he was a recent graduate looking for startup capital, generally these loans aren't crazy as they're only looking for 10-20M(thousand) to get things rolling. Boy was I wrong. This kid came in probably no more than 20, slicked back hair, full three piece suit carrying a briefcase. You have to be nice to everyone, but I immediately knew that this was going to be a waste of time.
I sit him down in my office and ask him what he's looking for. He calmly lays down his briefcase and asks me for a TWO BILLION DOLLAR LOAN.
First of all, I'm not even authorized to give more than 250M(thousand). When I asked him why he needed this he said that he wanted to buy all the property in our entire city, demolish it, and rebuild it into a "super city". After immediately declining this spectacular deal, he let's me know that he was really disappointed because he was hoping to quit his job at the grocery store that day.
9. My wife once had this guy walk in to the bank very discreetly. Holding onto his backpack like it was a life vest on the titanic. He was in the bank to try and sell his birth certificate.
BIRTH CERTIFICATE
[deleted]
10. I had a guy call up one time trying to get a loan to build a home for his pet monkeys. They were stinking up his living area and he wanted them to have their own place.
11. I'm just a teller, so I don't deal with loans much. There was one guy who said he just needed $50 until he got paid. And I said, well do you have a credit card? We can do a cash advance. He said no, he needs a loan. I said, I don't think there's anyway we can give you a $50 loan. He said, well can you just give it to me and then take it out of my account when my check comes in? I said, that's not really something we do and probably no one to actually record and monitor it. He looked enraged and said (Continued)
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He looked enraged and said BUT YOU'RE A BANK!! and then stormed off. I just gave my manager the WTF look.
12. Elderly lady came to our small credit union to request a multi-million dollar loan to open a water park. Her "business plan" was handwritten on unlined paper.
She also claimed that she was the divorced wife of a country music star.
13. A 20-something dude who just started out a "career" as "area sales manager" for some MLM scam wanted to buy a Mercedes to "adequately represent his profession / position", something in the range of 60k EUR. Needless to say the loan was denied, and since he had his current account with us, I would check it periodically for the big bucks he claimed would be rolling in soon. Didn't even take 2 months until he was on welfare.
14. I'm a teller, but one time a customer asked me to schedule him an appointment with a financial advisor at our branch because he was seriously considering taking out a loan to purchase a pet parrot....
15. I had one customer who wanted to open a restaurant. she had a good deal of experience managing a restaurant which is great. unfortunately she had nothing planned. not even a location. she walked in to ask about a loan with no idea what she was going to use it for.
16. Just last week I had someone want to apply for a loan so she could go eat at Luby's with her friends.
17. Buying a revenge snake.
A customer walks in. He asks for $200. I asked him why as he was filling out the paperwork. He said his Ex has been breaking into his house almost every night, but she is terrified of snakes. He was going to buy a massive snake and (Continued)
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and sleep with it, until she stops breaking in. If she doesn't he is going to release the snake into her apartment. I gave him a mortified look, worrying that his genius will escape him. He gave me a $5 tip and walked off smugly.
And he went to buy his revenge snake
18. I had a guy come in acting rudely to the greeter, who then referred them over to myself. Guy was in his fifties and looked liked he lived in his car. Proceeds to tell me he needs five thousand dollars to fly to Washington to solve the murder of his son and retrieve the body. He does not want to do any paperwork for this and tells me he's a cocaine dealer, and he wants to leave ten thousand dollars worth of coke for the five grand cash without even showing an ID. He assures me he's a professional and in the 26 years he's been doing it he's only been arrested twice. Though he mentioned he did just get out of jail on unrelated-to-cocaine charges. I had to decline his generous and exciting proposal cause ya know, everything.
19. I had a guy who owned his own multi-level marketing business and was looking for a business development loan.
Mostly for me, the absurd part of peoples request are when they want a business loan because they have an idea they think would work. Yet they have no experience, no capital and insufficient collateral. Sometimes it's a legitimate proposal but they don't have the resources or collateral. Barriers to entry is a hard concept for some to understand.
Then there are the requests that just hard to deal with. I had a lady who needed a loan for only enough to cremate her husband who had just passed away (since it was less expensive). She had terrible credit and basically no income... I made the loan anyway.
20. "I'd like to build a giant space station that can destroy a planet."
21. I used to go out with a girl whose mother was a rep for a high interest doorstep loan company. The customers were generally poor and should not be getting involved in such loans, but she did noooot care, sold the loans and encouraged more - which is Ok I guess, somebody has to.
So anyway she had one customer that was obviously mentally deficient to some degree. He never worked, hardly went out, lived alone and had no real interests of note - mostly just sitting around watching TV, and doing housework (he was happy enough with his simple life).
So he used to get a loan, pay his payment every week and when it was finished, he would take out another. One day she asked him what he was doing with the loans, and his answer was that he put the money in his savings account. If he borrowed 200, by the time the loan was done he maybe had 201. In his eyes it was a genius scheme to make money. The fact that he had paid around 60 in interest was lost on him.
Obviously GF's mother did not take the time to explain his error...
22. We had a customer request a loan for a "possible funeral". They ended up being denied so we didn't get any more of an explanation.
23. Not a banker, but I am a pawnbroker. A frequent customer, who happens to be a gambling addict goes to best buy and buys a brand new 1000 dollar tv on her credit card, brings it to my shop and borrows a few hundred bucks on the tv. Proceeds to go to the casino, wins a bunch of money, comes back and (Continued)
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pays back what she owes me for the tv loan which all things considered is very cheap (like 20 bucks to borrow 300) then returns the tv to best buy so she doesn't have to pay the rates for a cash advance on her card. A long crazy process to get extra gambling cash. I am not even sure its cheaper for her to do it that way than to just get cash on her card. She has done that about 5 times though, we see no reason not to do it but I am certain there are more efficient ways to spend your money.
24. Not a request. But it was a question I received after granting a 71 year old man a loan. He said to me that "How can you assure me that my account isn't going to be hacked with one of those Russian decoder machines" Pensioners these days eh?
25. Client wanted a $60k loan to send the funds to her overseas US boyfriend that she had never met because he was going to pay her back as soon as he got his discharge from the marines.
There had been a mix up with his papers supposedly and they were trying to deploy him to Afghanistan when he was supposed to be retiring and somehow because of this all his money was frozen.
She got the loan and I often wonder about her and hope that it was not a complete crock of turd.
I know she definitely sent him the money as when she came to get the loan she had already sent him over $50k in the last week. Couldn't get a clear answer why he needed so much money other than he was trying to sort things out so he can come be with her.
It was an unusual situation and due to responsible lending I was very apprehensive about doing the loan. Got it cleared with management after we got the client to declare that she fully understood the risks etc.
She was adamant that he was legit.
Note: I understand how so many people can't comprehend how we could morally lend this woman the money.
I honestly tried to discourage her, I know how it sounds and many people here now think I'm an awful person but I did everything in MY power to stop her.
She knew what she was doing. She knew the implications. If I didn't give her the loan she would have got it from someone else. We, being my boss and I, spent plenty of time warning her of scams and the risks. She was absolutely adamant he was her boyfriend and we were worried about nothing.
So we couldn't stop her as there was no reason to deny other than our suspicion. There's no way for us to prove that it was a scam despite how it sounded. At the end of the day you just can't stop some people from making poor decisions, no matter how hard you try to tell them.
26. I am an initial reviewer for loans when they first come in for a VERY large bank
I saw a couple that owned a large bag making company.
On every loan you have to disclose how much money you make every month so the bank can set a fair interest rate.
This couple made a combined total of $500,000 a month and were applying for a house that had an appraised value of $600,000
That made no sense to me to be honest... Like in 2 months you could buy that house.
I have seen a lot of crazy things when it comes to how much people make in certain fields.
if you have any questions ask away!
27. I used to be in consumer lending for a credit union call center and a lady called in one time asking for a personal loan. Our policy was to ask what the funds were going to be used for. When I asked, she said, "I need to buy a bell pepper for dinner." I was sure I misheard her and asked her to explain. So she said, "I am trying to make dinner and it requires a bell pepper. I need the loan to get the bell pepper."
28. To film Lethal Weapon 6
29. Had one guy come in trying to get a loan for a car. He really wanted a brand new Dodge Charger but he was unemployed and in the process of applying for Ontario Works (welfare) I was just a teller but I introduced him to the financial representative that could help him. When she pulled up his credit she saw that he had a loan with another bank that wasn't being paid. He told her that was because the interest they were charging him was bull and he won't pay them back. Needless to say he still doesn't have his Dodge Charger.
30. I once had a man in his early 20's take out a $60k loan to pay for traffic violations he racked up in a 9 month period. Upon further probing, he admitted that he pays around 20-50k a year on speeding tickets and reckless driving citations. I was floored at how he almost seemed chuffed by this.
