Loan asked with PM first sounded like a scam attempt to me, it would be much better for him to create a loan topic instead.
What is more suspicious to me is that he registered forum account in 2018, so we are not speaking about some newbie who don't know anything about forum rules.
I see this member have a history of asking loans, but he should finally learn proper way of doing this.
My conception is the same as yours and probably I had created a post/topic regarding multiple posts as well as multiple messages for the same purposes. It might be (should be) considered a scam as if they send 3 messages to 3 people and all of those people accept the loan request then the amount will be 3 times of initial asked amount and though the borrower might be able to repay that but while 3 times it might not be able to repay and it might be turned into scam.
[Note: I have received the repayment from the accused person.]