WhiteStone Financial Brokers Manchester Financial Services Nearly scammed me out of 700 dollars Manchester Village, Vermont

I will say right off the bat, even though this fraudulent company did not take any of my money, I still feel scammed.

I am trying to payoff some debt, and after I submitted an application at Lending Tree(who is a credible company, just an FYI), I received a phone call from Whitestone Financial, and a woman left me a message saying she had good news. Great, I initially thought. So I called her back after checking out their website(seemed legit). We went over the paperwork, and I let her know I only wanted to borrow the minimum, which was $5,000.

She then proceeded to tell me that I'd have to make a payment upfront in order to secure the loan, in order to protect the borrower as well as the lender. Seemed weird to me at first, but I know auto dealers and when buying a home, you have to make a down payment before you get the loan. I would have made a payment of 717.00, which covers the first 3 months of payments, meaning I didnt have to start paying my loan under December. I didn't have the funds right away, so I thought we'd arrange for the payment to come out at the end of August. She emailed me the paperwork, I read it thoroughly, still seemed legit at the time(physical address, contact information, website, company history, etc). I signed the agreement forms, and faxed them back.

Here's when the first major red flag showed up: when it came time to make the security payment, it wasn't until then that she informed me the payment needed to be made via Western Union. I would not be able to do this because 1) I was still at work and couldn't just up and run to the nearest WU and 2) my bank account limits a POS transaction to $250 per day. I called the woman back and explained to her, and I let her know that I was under the impression that the payment and deposit of my loan would be done via ACH. She then said because I am an out-of-state applicant, I needed to pay via Western Union. If I were living in Vermont, I could make the payment in person, in cash.

I thought this was odd, so I went back to their website. Cannot access it. So I start to research loan fraud, and I ended up at vermont.gov, and contacted their Financial Regulation department. I spoke with a representative who informed me that Whitestone Financial Brokers is a SCAM. So all in all, I didn't send Whitestone ANY funds, and I shredded the loan agreement. I am glad they didn't get my money, but seeing as I really needed this money, and I was happy that someone was willing to work with me and my bad credit, I still feel like I've been bamboozled.