Once upon a time, from 2010 - 2020, the concept of a trial loan (or Native American loan, or in the most unsophisticated form, a reservation loan) was largely unmentioned and certain unadvertised. No one involved in the Native American lending business wanted to discuss that the loans littering the internet were often issued from a Native American tribal organization that had established a subsidiary that was producing very expensive loan products.
Somewhere in the last two years that has changed, but not quite in the way you would think. The Native American lenders didn't start publicizing the fact they were issuing loans. Instead, many loan matching companies started using the term 'tribal loans' in their public communications and marketing. Now although this will be noticed by hardly anyone - it is an interesting situation for those that follow the industry. But that's why we are here, to look behind the curtain to see what's new with this withering and humiliating line of business.
ModoLoan (or Modo Loan) is a company that has attempted to piggyback on the Native American loan craze. And it makes sense, right? Word has gotten around the campfire that tribal lenders do not use the Big 3 credit rating agencies and that's music to the ears of all those millions of Americans who do not have a good credit score. So someone in the Modo Loan empire must have said to a manager: 'hey, let's create an ad that alludes to us utilizing Native American loans and that way we will get a big pile of folks filling out our application.'
Sound a bit cynical? Well, I believe it is. ModoLoan is not a tribal lender, you can sweep through the fine print of their website all day and you won't find the usual mention of 'wholly-owned tribal lending entity' type of disclaimer. What does this mean for the consumer? On the good side it means that borrowers won't be subject to the huge annual percentage rates that Native American lenders smash their clients with. But on the bad side, there's a very good chance that many of the applicants will get declined.
Of course all of this involves a degree of speculation on my part but I'm pretty sure this is what's going on. Anyone with any better information, anyone who has gotten a loan from Modo Loans - I would encourage you to write me or leave a comment, let me know just how on target I am or how far off the mark this info is. No worries and no judgement, I am much more interested in the facts than how correct my speculative projections are. But do not expect to disprove the non-tribal factor of ModoLoan - because it's not a tribal lending outfit.
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