One of the most popular and researched Native American loan companies is 500 Fast Cash. If you want to read about 500 Fast Cash reviews you've come to the right spot. This company has been through a lot with all of the challenges to their business model from the state of New York, but the company is running just fine now, at least until the next barrage from state regulators comes their way.
However, the question now is, how is 500 Fast Cash doing when it comes to customer opinion? In the end, it's not what the state governments think about 500 Fast Cash but what their customers (and ex-customers) think about them. Let's see what those customer have to say in their 500 Fast Cash reviews...
One customer wrote about 500 Fast Cash and they weren't very happy about their loan, as they wrote "I was approved for what I thought was a standard payday loan. I have now paid over 500 dollars for a 400 dollar loan."
This type of complaint is a bit open-ended and it's hard to determine who is more at fault, 500 Fast Cash or the customer. At one end of the spectrum, it's obvious that tribal payday loan companies charge too much in interest and that's well documented. But I have no doubt that 500 Fast Cash provided all of the loan information on the loan agreement form that the customer received.
Did the customer get loan extensions on this loan? It seems as though he must have because otherwise the loan would have been repaid all at once on the first (only) repayment date. How could the loan keep accruing new finance charges to get over $400 in finance fees without loan extensions? It's hard to side with either side when we don't have more in depth information.
Here is another 500 Fast Cash review that doesn't do the company a lot of justice. The customer wrote "I did not know that for every 100.00 the fee is $30.00 and on a 600.00 turned into a 1400.00 payment leaving me borrowing money to pay my rent. I called them in June for help and they were so rude and ill mannered that I was disgusted with them and told them never again will I borrow from them" so this customer was not very happy with the lender. This situation tells two major stories. The first concept is that you do not want to use a tribal payday loan company for any length of time.
The Native American payday loan is truly best if you can treat it like a payday loan and repay it at the end of the 14 days. But the real important concept here is that many customers are not aware of the loans they are agreeing to take on. This customer just admitted it right away and what can one expect if they take out a loan that is going to hit them with 30% interest every 14 days? It's just not a realistic strategy as a form of credit. It's not really a legitimate credit resource, it's an extremely short-term loan which needs to be treated as such otherwise it becomes this yawning financial black hole.
Let's look at one more 500 Fast Cash review (even though you are probably getting the drift of where this is all going) that comes from a borrower back in February of 2013 where they wrote "I borrowed $500 and was informed that I would be making payments of $150 for a total of $650, which would then pay off the loan. I paid the $650 and now I am told that my current balance is $650, as in that is still outstanding and owed, despite having just paid the $650. This is the biggest joke ever and I just can't let myself believe I was so dumb to do business with a company like this. Please whatever you do, don't use this company for a loan."
As you can see we have another happy customer that is thrilled that they did business with 500 Fast Cash. The one thing I will say here in defense of 500 Fast Cash is that I'm not sure what the customer is alluding to when he says that he still owed another $650, because that just sounds too unbelievable. But who knows? Why would he bother to make up that story and go post in on the internet? The problem is that so many of this firms customers are just not happy, enraged, disappointed in themselves, and warning other people (who they don't even know and will never meet) to stay away from this company. That's not a good sign.
Consumers search out and read reviews on products and companies for a reason, they want to know what other people are saying about them. And what is being said about 500 Fast Cash is not very impressive, in fact the only impression being made is that we should not do business with them.
What is my own personal, non-scientific opinion on 500 Fast Cash? Well, I have borrowed from four Native American lenders but never from 500 Fast Cash. I did review their website and what they had to offer though when I was applying with a bunch of tribal lenders and I just decided that they weren't for me. Even without reading all these displeasing stories I had already made up my own mind that this isn't the type of loan product that I'm interested in, mainly because I just do not understand how it helps anyone.
If you are broke or you need money for a sudden problem, then ostensibly you would contact 500 Fast Cash for a fast loan, right? Okay, so you get the $500 and you pay off the deficit in the checking account or have the flat tire replaced on your car or whatever the financial difficulty was that you happened to be encountering. So that part is good. But in about 12 or 14 days things will not be so good.
Assuming you get paid from your job in 12 or 14 days, then you will be owing the company a total of $650 (just as the person in the last example did, where they owed $500 which was the original principal amount and $150 for the finance charge) and the question is how are you going to repay that?
Here is a better question, which is do you have $650 laying around after you get paid every two weeks? Do you have $650 you can just spend on frivolous things on your next payday? Can you take your next paycheck and take out $650 of it and spend in on candy, gambling, expensive dinners, video games, and other non-essential items? If you answered no, then the question becomes how can you take out that same $650 and hand it over to 500 Fast Cash? (and that goes for any short-term lender, tribal or otherwise)
This is why so many people get into trouble with payday lenders, and the tribal payday lenders make it more of a struggle as the unregulated interest rates make the hurdle that much higher.
My personal review of 500 Fast Cash is to stay away. You can use Mobiloans, Clear Creek Lending, Plain Green Loans, or any of the Native American installment lenders. They are just as easy to to qualify for, and they give you a longer time to repay. Plus, they give you a lower interest rate and they allow you borrow much more money than 500 Fast Cash. The real question is not why you should use 500 Fast Cash, but rather why shouldn't you be using their competitors? The answer is you should take advantage of their competition, for a number of reasons.
Comments