Many are tricked, in part, because these government loan scams use real sounding names to fool people. Some of the scams use actual names of well known financial instutions and government agencies. If you go to their website it will probably look very respectable and sophisticated. Designing a legitimate looking website is part of the scheme. If you're sent to a website for more information or to fill out forms it makes many people feel more comfortable with the whole deal. The part that fools people is that the website domains will be just a little bit different than those of the real financial or government websites. Just different enough to trick you. Real government websites usually, but not always, have domains ending in .gov which is difficult to forge. 640-802 Bear in mind that you can make a link say anything you want. Where that link takes you is another story. When the link says government-loans.gov but once clicked you are taken to government-loans.com you should be on your guard.