topic Re: My Lending Club Experience in General Credit Topics

My Lending Club Experience

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 22:55:54 GMT

I've learned a lot lurking these forums figuring out what consolidation loan to get, so I just wanted to drop in by Lending Club experience this week.

I have an assortment of debt unfortunately from unexpected family medical bills totallying around 32.5k. My AMEX APR just reset from 0 to ~22% so I figured it was time to look into a personal loan. I went between Prosper, Lending Club, and SoFi. They all had good rates but they varied from term to term. Rates seemed somewhat sporadic day by day as I was looking into it based on options available.

Kind of an interesting note regarding my Lending Club Loan. When I had set the reason as Debt Consolidation initially, my APR 15.30%. I ended up cancelling that loan because I wanted to change the dollar amount and check out SoFi, which had a slightly better rate. But I was still debating between SoFi, LC, and Prosper. Prosper had the best rate for a shorter 36 month loan. SoFi had the best overall rate for any term with no origination fee. Because SoFi didn't have an origination fee, I had to play with the loan amounts to compare them with LC and Prosper to see payments based on what LC and Prosper were actually paying out.

When I redid the applications so I could compare rates again two days later, I had set my reason as Credit Card Refinancing rather than Debt Consolidation, my APR dropped to 10.59% for the 60 month term. A huge drop in APR from 15.30%. Not sure why, but something to keep in mind in case it changes for anyone else as well.

Monday Morning: Applied for the Lending Club Loan, LC requested W2, 2 Paystubs, Bank Account Verification, Work Email Verification
Tuesday Morning: Small Bank Deposit went through the previous night, LC requested phone verification and asked a series of questions regarding my identity.

Wednesday Morning: Nothing from LC, no movement whatsoever.
Thursday Morning: Loan Approved by LC and the funds are being delivered right now, most likely will go through this evening. The loan for some weird reason never went into a funding stage and I am not 100% sure who funded my loan. I'm thinking potentially that LC bought my loan out and never listed it. In fact, my listing still has the Funding Area grayed out and I can't view who my investors are.

Loan Requested: $34,125

APR: 10.59%

Amount Despoited: $32,419

Term: 60 Months
Total Finance Charge: $9,480

Monthly Payment: $698.32

4 day turnaround with a pretty decent rate. I may refinance it later through SoFi as I expect my rate to drop when my CC Utilization Drops. I'm not a big fan of Lending Club after reading about them because they make it pretty difficult to pay additional money towards the principal. They are a little rude on the phone, but the phone is the only way of getting additional payments made. Prosper and SoFi seem to have an online payment system in place.

My Details:
TransUnion Score: 733
2015 Income: $99,924
Debt: $32504
Credit Line: 102k between AMEX, Chase Freedom, Discover, BoA, Best Buy CC.

I checked my rate a lot in the past week with these sites who do Soft Pulls debating between terms and precise amounts. I can't remember all the rates I saw, but I noticed they seemed to change day to day and there is definitely some sort of APR Threshold between loan amounts. It could be as simple as taking a loan for $1 less than that threshold to get the lower rate, so I encourage someone who is in this sort of position to play around with it and find what works for you.

I hope this information helps someone out there comparing rates. Now I just need to ride this out and hopefully work towards an early payoff.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 23:25:52 GMT

I'm not a big fan of Lending Club after reading about them because they make it pretty difficult to pay additional money towards the principal.

I had no trouble doing so when I paid off my loan early.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 23:41:59 GMT

Thank you. That's good to know. I have a variable monthly income and live off last month's income and budget with YNAB.

I haven't had to make a first payment yet, but from what I read, I can set my payments every month at a higher amount say $800. But I'll need to call in if I want to pay $100 more this month and call in again next month if I want to pay $500 more. It's probably a tiny issue, but after being on hold the last time I called in, I wish there was a way to manage it online.

I'm sure I'll find out soon, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 22:53:20 GMT

Interesting, yesterday I received a response from customer support mentioning high application volume; "Right now we’re experiencing high application volumes and we’re currently around that 14 day point." I submitted my application just a few days after you. Maybe your score and income made things faster on your end, or maybe that is just one of their generic copy/past customer support email.

My support question actually had nothing to do with the timeframe.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Revelate — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 05:42:09 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Interesting, yesterday I received a response from customer support mentioning high application volume; "Right now we’re experiencing high application volumes and we’re currently around that 14 day point." I submitted my application just a few days after you. Maybe your score and income made things faster on your end, or maybe that is just one of their generic copy/past customer support email.

My support question actually had nothing to do with the timeframe.

Interesting, just recently saw that the number of deliquencies on subprime auto loans spiked precipitously very recently. May go trawl the listings and see what people have for their stories heh.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

e123 — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 00:15:19 GMT

Just recieved my Lending Club funds. It was about 7 days from the time I applied to recieving funds.

I have 1099 income selling real estate. Lending Club never called or ask for much info, just the basics. Not sure they even made a trial deposit. After about 6 days I got an email saying funds being deposited in the few days. I borrowed 15K and listed the reason as home improvement. My rate is 12.00. Credit score they pulled is 765.

I wanted the "extra cushion" of the 15K just in case my project goes over budget. Loan will be payed off later this year.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Jenny — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 16:42:26 GMT

Hey there, out of curiosity, does Lending Club ask for credit card accounts and balances to verify that you're actually paying down/off credit cards and then verify that you've closed those credit accounts? I've been approved by Lending Club, but my reason was "other"- which is actually to buy a restaurant. Just wondering if I can play around with the reasoning.

Thanks for providing your experience and details. It was very helpful!

Re: My Lending Club Experience

e123 — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 17:10:46 GMT

Lending club only pulled one credit report. They did not ask for any further info after inital application. My scores are mid 700's or higher.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 00:17:59 GMT

@Jenny wrote:
Hey there, out of curiosity, does Lending Club ask for credit card accounts and balances to verify that you're actually paying down/off credit cards and then verify that you've closed those credit accounts? I've been approved by Lending Club, but my reason was "other"- which is actually to buy a restaurant. Just wondering if I can play around with the reasoning.

Thanks for providing your experience and details. It was very helpful!

They didn't ask me anything about card balances. Of course they could see from my credit report that I had practically none.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 14:01:16 GMT

Don't mean to bring up a old thread however i'm looking to do something similar..

I'm looking to use LC for wedding funding for about a month (one payment than paid off right off the wedding) details are as follows

Need 15k loan

My salary is 40k with additional 12k in guarenteed commission this year (52k total)

My W2 for last year is 69k

My TU is at 683

What are the chances for approval if anyone wouldnt mind chiming in?

I have a different job than I did last year and I havent gottem my first incentive pay yet (end of this month) to show them i'll be making the 52 this year which I think would allow me to borrow the 15k vs my base 40k?

Thanks Guys!

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Appleman — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 14:26:07 GMT

CoolMike90,

The nice thing about LendingClub and Prosper is that you can see if you pre-qualify for one of their loans with only a SP (soft pull).

There are plenty of providers in the field of personal loans so check with multiple sites. (Ensure that it will only be a soft pull to check, most do a hard pull when you officially apply)

Re: My Lending Club Experience

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 17:51:01 GMT

In addition to Lending Club and Prosper, take a look at Promise Financial. They are also a soft pull to check and their hook, (they loan for anything, though), is wedding financing. I have a loan with them at 6.2%.

Re: My Lending Club Experience

cinnamongirl — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 22:55:39 GMT

Sadly, Promise Financial doesn't loan money in my state-- South Carolina seems to be only one of few states that they do NOT do business in