Thinking of getting a loan from Springleaf or OneMain Financial

[Anonymous]

I am thinking of getting a loan from springleaf or onemain financial.  I read stories on how shady they are but most of them are because of late payments.  I want to borrow 5-10k loan and I know I can pay the monthly bill on time.  I am thinking of taking a 36 month loan and pay it off within a year and a half.  My thinking is that if I paid the loan off earlier than the 36 months, they can't charge me for any extra interest.  Hearing about stories where people borrowed 5,000 only to end up paying 30,000 in interest scares me.  So If I was to pay this loan off way earlier than the 36 months, I shouldn't have to worry about paying interest right?  Say interest is an extra 3,000, so in total I am paying a balance of 13,000?  By paying that early, I shouldn't incur any other fees? This will be my last effort if I get denied from a Credit Union.  An interest of 3k is alot and I doubt I would go through with it.  Just need to know all my options.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

What do you need the money for? What's your credit like?

I ask these two questions because there may be better options... These loans can end up putting you farther behind than getting ahead...

[TeeandDee]

I looked into both Springleaf and OneMain Financial last month and they are very shady! I decided to not go through with the loan after reading the loan contract.  I applied for a $2,500 loan and would have ended up paying over $5,000.  They are an incredible rip off and not to be trusted!  They add on all sorts of interest at the front of the loan and that's how it would report on your credit report.  So basically I would have got $2,500 but $5,000 would have shown up on my credit report.  Even if I had paid the $2,500 off in two months, there would be no way to prove that was all I owed.  The Customer Service rep basically admiitted I was right!!!!  So I ripped up the offer and walked out of there thankful I did not go through with it.  I mean how is their business practice even legal?!  You are loaned $2,500 but end up paying over $5,000?!  How crazy is that?!   If I were you...I'd look into other options.

[Anonymous]

Truthfully, I am fortunate that I don't need the money.  I just prefer to have more money in the bank now.  I have about 4,800 in AMEX and 3,500 in Chase.  I am paying off the Chase card 500 every month.  I am going to pay off the AMEX card since its a charge card, paying that off will show a balance of 1500 in my bank account.  I just prefer to have more money because I know I can pay off the minimum monthly payment.  I might just try to rebuild my credit then apply for prosper.com again.  They need at lease a 640 credit score.  I don't mind paying interest of 1,500 on a 10,000 loan because I will have more money in my bank account.  A 3,000 interest is too much for me, I hope everything goes well at the Credit Union.

[Anonymous]

I have fair credit of 650, 640 and 620, so not that great of credit.

[1768geme]

You should try prosper.com a peer to peer lending group . Never had any problems whit them.

[pizzadude]

You need to be very careful with these types of loans ~ they are usually not simple interest loans but as stated there is a lot of upfront interest that you have to pay first.    Make sure you ask for an amortization schedule and fully understand the terms/fees/etc.. before you decide.

[Revelate]

I guess I'm confused, if you don't need the money, why borrow it?  It's typically a bad idea to borrow one's "reserve" at any APR in excess of what you could get on a CD or other investment vehicle... and personal loans don't come that cheap anyway.

There may be other options outside of that, if you own your car, you may be able to take a title loan, but unless you're in short-term need for some float, it just doean't seem to make a lot of sense to me.  If you do need a short-term loan, Cashcall works and is nowhere near as shady as the others you mentioned, though the APR high, it's a simple interest loan with no early repayment penalty.  Something like $75 for an application fee though.  Extra bonus is that their loans report to Experian.

[Anonymous]

I got denied from Prosper due to TU score of < 640.  I don't own anything so I have no title for any sort of collateral.  I am fine with paying 1500 interest but anything more is not worth it.

Thanks for the amortizable table idea.

[1768geme]

Prosper only pulls experian  and only hard inquiy if loan is funded