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Possibly fake Kiva loans

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Possibly fake Kiva loans

#1
These two profiles are too similar to be just a coincidence, the text appears to be auto-generated just replacing the numbers, names and specific bits.

Maybe somebody is gaming/abusing Kiva? Or is Kiva itself creating fake profiles? I'll contact them and post any updates.

Profile 1: http://goo.gl/cBytRa Profile 2: http://goo.gl/79re14 Screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/0NUaI

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#2
Could it not just be that there are a lot of people in similar situations getting loans through Kiva and to save time a template is used for the loan description?

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#3
I don't see anything bad about that The text looks the same but those seem to be very different people and shops. The Kiva personnel look for certain types of people to lend money to in order to do economic development and sometimes copy and pasting a bit of text best explains to us from afar what they're going to do with the money.

You'd be surprised how many people need to specifically purchase "cigarettes, drinks, and soap" to expand their business.

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#4
Looks to me like there are just two women with children in Sierra Leone that run little shops that sell similar items.

I'm sure Kiva has several templates that they use to post loans - you don't think they write each one by hand, do you?

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#5
According to those pages, they want more than an average year of income for a person in that area, to buy inventory. Isn't that too much inventory to buy all at once?

And yeah it looks like there was a shared template for both of these.

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#6
post #2

Could it not just be that there are a lot of people in similar situations getting loans through Kiva and to save time a template is used for the loan description?

Maybe, but they have too much similarities (they want to buy the exact same things, work the exact same time, started their business in the same year, etc). Or maybe it's just statistically not that improbable.

Anyway, I have already asked them, waiting for a response.

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#7

According to those pages, they want more than an average year of income for a person in that area, to buy inventory. Isn't that too much inventory to buy all at once? And yeah it looks like there was a shared template for both of these.

Assume:

- She has a bare minimum of inventory now, as she doesn't have capital to invest

- Inventory turns are 13 (the 'average' item is on the shelf for 4 weeks)

That would mean she plans her cost of sales to be 13x the average per capita income in that area. That doesn't seem unreasonable if she can get 200 customers to spend 10% of their income in her shop (assuming 50% markup).

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#8
Who writes the profiles? Is it possible that a field partner of Kiva writes the profiles? That might explain the similarity. They might well i) use a template to create the text, and ii) seek out loan candidates who match a very specific set of criteria. That might explain the similarities.

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#9

According to those pages, they want more than an average year of income for a person in that area, to buy inventory. Isn't that too much inventory to buy all at once? And yeah it looks like there was a shared template for both of these.

Well, depends on your store, product, and supply chain. Wouldn't surprise me if you had to carry lots of inventory in Sierra Leone since your suppliers aren't exactly up to JIT.

Re: Possibly fake Kiva loans

#10
Lets not forget that Kiva profiles are there purely as a way to entice the individual to lend. The money just goes in aggregate to the local lending org. The profile you see is mostly a gimmick.
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