World Bank IMF, International Monetary Funders Financial Scam Claiming You Can Rent CDs And Use Them As Collateral For A Loan Washington DC

 I am a banker who had a client request a $5MM loan using $5MM in CDs "rented" from World Bank, FKA IMF or International Monetary Funders for collateral. Just that little bit of information is enough to know it is a scam.

First off, no one is going to let you use their money as collateral for a loan, even for a fee, when there is the possibility of losing that money if your loan goes into default. World Banks fees in connection with this totaled $206,000. Sounds like alot but it isn't when you are working with $5MM. If this were legitimate, World Bank would have kept the money on deposit in their own bank and just done a cash secured loan to my client thus collecting loan fees and interest for years. They say they are not a traditional bank and they do not do loans. So then why does their website make it sound like they do? Their entire website from top to bottom makes it sound like they do loans, lines of credit, credit cards, investments, etc, but they do not. It is all, 100%, cut and pasted information from other websites and it just gives you information on what those products are. They never say they offer those products to you, just that these things exist in the world.

I did some simple research online and found the following:

World Banks history as published on their own website is a cut and paste of information from The World Banks website (The World Bank is legitimate). World Banks logo is The World Banks logo simply turned 45 degrees counterclockwise. The international locations of World Bank, which include The Bahamas, Mexico City, Paris, London, Warsaw and Tokyo are all false addresses. They are, respectively, The College of The Bahamas, a construction company headquarters, a shopping mall, a travel agency, a virtual office where you can rent space and the Cerulean Tower Hotel. I called every one of these locations and they all have never heard of World Bank.

I then ran a search of their website and discovered they bought the address in 2012, renewed it in 2013 and it expires in 2014. No bank rents a website for 12 months at a time, we own our websites outright. The Registrar of the website has an office in Miami Florida that is actually the BB&T Bank building and a Mortons Steakhouse. When I called there I was able to verify that no attorney or World Bank is located at that address. I also ran a reverse phone number search on the Registrars phone and it is a mobile phone out of Key West Florida, hardly what a bank or attorney would use for a business phone.

The entity that handles the CDs is World Bankers at 48 Wall Street, NY, NY. That address is the old Bank of New York Mellon building. I called the property management company for that location and they confirmed there is no World Bankers located there and there never has been.

The Letter of Commitment issued to my client was 2 pages long. For ANY loan, especially a $5MM loan, a Commitment Letter would be much longer. Ours is 26 pages. No where on the Letter does it ask for the Borrower to sign. It even states that "Acceptance of this email constitutes your agreement with and consent to all terms and conditions contained herein." How is it possible NOT to accept an email in your inbox unless you have previously blocked the sender? It also has language that you indemnify World Bank for everything. This is how they avoid prosecution. The signer of the letter is Leslie N. Seymour, Director. He is a Bahamian, not a U.S. Citizen. The Corporate Seal is dated 2013 yet they claim to have been around since 1957. Their seal should have the year they were first incorporated. You do not get a new corporate seal each year.

So how does the scam work? It is a scam utilizing lies of omission. They use vague phrases and ambiguity and count on you being so excited about getting your loan that you are willing to look past the red flags. You go to their website and fill out the application. 100% of the applicatinos are approved no matter your credit score, your industry, your risk profile, doesn't matter. Another red flag. They tell you they will buy $5MM of CDs in a bank of your choice and the CDs can be used as collateral for your loan. They will entice the banker to do your loan and they can be used as compensating balances. Well what they are NOT telling you is that yes, they can be used as collateral but only if all the investors who sent their money to World Bank sign hypothecation agreements to do so. A hypothecation agreement allows the bank to lock up the CD as collateral for your loan. In my clients case there was going to be 22 investors from all over the planet sending in their money and I would have had to track them all down and convince them to let my client use their money as collateral for a loan. Something no one in their right mind would do. If my clients loan went bad I would cash out the investors CDs to pay for the loan and the investors would lose their money. No one is doing that for a complete stranger. You see, World Bank has no money, they get investors to send them money for CDs, so World Bank can not legally bind that money as collateral. See? You can use the CDs for collateral, like their website says, but it's not going to happen. I can be an astronaut but it's not gonna happen.................

So World Bank has you send in a Commitment Fee when you agree to the deal and in my clients case that was $14,000. When you contact them closer to closing day with the bank doing the loan they ask for the remaining portion of the CD Rental Fee, typically 3.5% of the loan amount. In my clients case it was $192,500. It is after they receive that fee that they tell you the CDs can't be used for collateral without all the investors signing a hypothecation agreement. The bank hears that and declines to do the loan OR you back out of the deal. And according to the Letter of Commitment sentence I mentioned above, as well as other information in the letter, you and/or the bank has "cancelled" the Letter of Commitment and "...all fees, deposits and costs under this letter shall remain due and payable and deemed earned." That means all monies you have sent them are gone forever.

So where does your money go? They have you send the Commitment Fee to an escrow attorney of their choosing. They assure you it is safe and under the control of the escrow attorney and neither you nor World Bank can touch it. Problem is, the escrow attorney is part of the scam. They use an attorney out of Michigan who has been reprimanded by the State Bar of Michigan 3 times and he has been cited for incompetency. After the loan does not close the Michigan attorney sends the escrow money to World Bank saying it was earned as stated in the Letter of Commitment. Unfortunately, it WAS earned according to the terms of the Letter which YOU accepted by opening their email. Scam complete.

My client lost $14,000 because they were so focused on their goal they ignored the red flags. But they stopped before losing the other $192,500. They were so sure everything was legit and they were not going to listen to anybody. They rationalized away the red flags and were sure THEY could not be scammed. Folks, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is".

NEVER do business with World Bank, IMF, International Monetary Funders or ANYBODY offering to Rent CDs. 100% of the time it is absolute fraud. It took me only 6 hours of work to uncover every piece of this scam, who the players are, where they are located and how the scam comes full circle. And it all could have been avoided if my client had simply asked if it sounded like a normal thing for someone to invest $5MM with a total stranger.