Why would a loan company deposit a small amount of money into your account to verify if you are honest about repaying the loan you’re asking for?
They want to deposit a small amount into my account, and then I have to return that money, and they say they will deposit the amount of the loan I’m requesting into my account.
What exactly is the "small amount" we're talking about here? It is pretty common when setting up a direct deposit to send one or two payments of < $1 and to ask the owner of the account holder to confirm the amount of the payment. That ensures that the routing number and account number are correct. The sender would then automatically withdraw those small deposits. The account holder shouldn't need to do anything to return the money.
If we're talking about more than a dollar and the individual is asking you to initiate a payment back to them, that would seem likely to be some form of an advanced payment scam where their deposit turns out to bounce and get reversed but your payment can't be reversed.
This is the wrong part: "and require I send it back".
A reputable institution may deposit a very small value in your account to perform some tests and then they revert this transaction. You do nothing.
A typical scan would demand that you make a transfer to another account, thus stealing your money. Any deposit that you first "receive" is a temporary fake, that will be reversed, as above.
It goes like this: They transfer fake money, you transfer your real money, the fake money disappears, the loss is on you.
This is a scam. Don't engage further, block them, and be safe.
You giving back money they just gave you tells them nothing about your ability to pay back a much larger amount of money over some period of time. "If we can trust this guy to return $5, we can trust him to return $5000." It's absurd. If that's actually the reason they told you, then I would assume it's a scam.
I had one case where the sender of a 0.10€ transaction required me to do an action - to look at the transaction description, find a 5 digits code, and type it into the web request form to ensure the banking details are OK.
To be clear: there were no monetary transactions required, the 0.1€ was reverted on its own.
This is more or less the equivalent of an email saying " please confirm your email by clicking the link". If you expect it then fine, otherwise you just ignore it.
I do not remember which service that was.
If it is really only a tiny token amount (less than you would pay for a pack of gum - i.e. less than a Dollar / Euro) they may use this to verify that the bank account indeed belongs to you and that you can access it / perform transactions from it. I had this experience with both online payment services and big retailers - but once again, the amount was tiny - between 1 and 10 Cents I think.
If they ask for more than that - you probably are looking at a scam: The money transferred to your account will get reversed (as the account it came from is likely hacked etc. making it a fraudulent transaction) while the money you from your account is likely to be gone for good (you were not hacked, but simply fell for social engineering, which the bank does not care about).
A legitimate lender is perfectly capable of pulling back the payment on their own without any of your help.
Now you know how companies will often text you a one-time-use authentication code, typically in TXT to your cell phone. When linking a bank account, they will typically do the same thing by sending two "penny deposits" to your account. For instance they might send an 8 cent and 43 cent deposit to your account. They then demand these two numbers as authentication to confirm you control the account. Once that's done, they snap back the two deposits - they are not yours to keep.
Then the person, having gained your confidence, will say they made a terrible mistake by fat-fingering the wrong amount. Then, they will claim they cannot pull the money back (total lies) and will manipulate you into returning the money via some other method such as Cryptocurrency, purchasing gift cards, Zelle, Western Union or some other irreversible method.
Then they will actually pull the money back, and keep the crypto, Western Union or whatever you sent them. You are left holding the bag.
This scam involves convincing you to use a "screen sharing" app which actually gives them remote control of your PC. They have you log into your bank account normally. Then, out of your sight, they go into developer console on the web browser you are using, and alter the HTML code so it shows a deposit that didn't actually happen. Then they say "oh look, it refreshed, there is our deposit indeed, just as I told you!"
Again they claim they made a mistake and you need to send them the money back via some other method such as Bitcoin etc. because they can't pull it back, always a lie.
And in this scam they get to see your bank account with their own eyes, so they know how bug of a "mark" you are and how much effort they should put into scamming you.
The common ground is they over-deposited and you need to send some back.
Or, they are trying to convince your bank to authorize them to take arbitrary withdrawals from your account.
It is a scam. There is no loan company, there is one or more scammers. If someone gives you money, then asks you to return it, it is a scam.
Here is how it works: The money you receive isn’t real. It’s paid with a forged check, or comes from a hacked bank account. It will go into your account, but the bank will take it back. But the money you return, that is real, and you will lose it.
There are many ways this happens. There is the “sugar daddy” who pays for a girls attention and asks for some money back. There are parents enrolling their non-existing kids into some expensive private school, pay s check for $5,300 instead of $3,500 “by mistake” and ask the school to return $1800.
Every single time if someone gives you money and asks you to return some of it, it is a scam. 100%.
