The quick TL;DR is I got pre-approval offers on Bankrate. I got denied by Avant for a $32k personal loan to consolidate my cc debts ($39k), resulting in a HP. Realized late only after more research from the denial that Avant reviews were not great. Upstart was a better option but I wanted the lower origination fee (5% vs 8%) from Avant. Applied again but with Upstart, got approved, then quickly denied. Reason was a recent HP. Sent Upstart documentation to prove I wasn’t approved by Avant, and they approved me the next day and sent funds the day after that. Super easy experience with Upstart and regret ever trying Avant first because now I have 2 HP’s.
The full story:
Started my credit rebuild in 2019, was able to raise my scores with a Lending Club loan of $7.8k, and raise my CL to $25k with some new credit cards, but a year later fell off the path due to a change in job/salary and life events but also mismanagement of credit cards. Fast forward to now, $39k in revolving debt and lower scores. I decided to take control again and consolidate my 23.5%-29.99% APR cards and take out a $32k personal loan. Did some research and used Bankrate to see my offers and I got some from Avant, Upstart, and HappyMoney (formerly Payoff). I cross compared and decided to move forward with Avant because the origination fee was only 5% vs 8%. Well that should not be the only factor to consider. I def recommend to those shopping around to also look at reviews. I got denied, after providing additional documents of last two tax filing summaries. I had to request the reason for disapproval and have yet to receive that via email. Only after my denied app, I looked up the less than impressive reviews on Avant and good reviews on Upstart, and realized i should have done Upstart instead. Avant is known to require more verification and has lower approval. HappyMoney would not offer more than $25k to me so I decided to do another app, this time with Upstart. I got instant approved, and then denied right after. Turns out the recent HP from Avant raised red flag, but all I needed to do was show proof that I did not get approved (screenshotted my denied email) from Avant. Spoke to an agent to check on my submission and quickly got approved. Funds were deposited into my checking the next day (as long as you’re approved before 5pm est). $682 monthly and 13.2% APR (actual is 9.48% but have to factor the origination fee) for 60months, much better than $1200 a month. Origination fee is 8% which is not ideal but now I save $400-500 monthly which I can use to pay down the rest of my credit card debt of about $9k, and work on paying off loan faster. Overall I’m saving about $15k-19k in interest. This time around I’m also going to only use my cc’s if I can afford to pay it off in full. I definitely DO NOT want to end up with $60k in debt from this!
The full story:
Started my credit rebuild in 2019, was able to raise my scores with a Lending Club loan of $7.8k, and raise my CL to $25k with some new credit cards, but a year later fell off the path due to a change in job/salary and life events but also mismanagement of credit cards. Fast forward to now, $39k in revolving debt and lower scores. I decided to take control again and consolidate my 23.5%-29.99% APR cards and take out a $32k personal loan. Did some research and used Bankrate to see my offers and I got some from Avant, Upstart, and HappyMoney (formerly Payoff). I cross compared and decided to move forward with Avant because the origination fee was only 5% vs 8%. Well that should not be the only factor to consider. I def recommend to those shopping around to also look at reviews. I got denied, after providing additional documents of last two tax filing summaries. I had to request the reason for disapproval and have yet to receive that via email. Only after my denied app, I looked up the less than impressive reviews on Avant and good reviews on Upstart, and realized i should have done Upstart instead. Avant is known to require more verification and has lower approval. HappyMoney would not offer more than $25k to me so I decided to do another app, this time with Upstart. I got instant approved, and then denied right after. Turns out the recent HP from Avant raised red flag, but all I needed to do was show proof that I did not get approved (screenshotted my denied email) from Avant. Spoke to an agent to check on my submission and quickly got approved. Funds were deposited into my checking the next day (as long as you’re approved before 5pm est). $682 monthly and 13.2% APR (actual is 9.48% but have to factor the origination fee) for 60months, much better than $1200 a month. Origination fee is 8% which is not ideal but now I save $400-500 monthly which I can use to pay down the rest of my credit card debt of about $9k, and work on paying off loan faster. Overall I’m saving about $15k-19k in interest. This time around I’m also going to only use my cc’s if I can afford to pay it off in full. I definitely DO NOT want to end up with $60k in debt from this!
personal
biz
Start 1/1/19
Best 11/15/21
Current rebuild
Thanks! In this case I was able to see the origination fee at the SP stage to show me the different offers and numbers based on term and total loan options. Upstart was indeed 8% but with low 600s scores I didn’t really have any other options on that. Just hate that I used up an HP for the denied app.
