Just when you thought the term "blue" had been used up by tribal lenders, we now have Blue Trust Loans as another Native American loan company.
First we had Blue Thread Lending (a very original name) and then there was Blug Frog Cash, which is a payday lender. After that we had Blue King and Blue Pine Lending.
But today we have found the newest tribal lender to add to the big list, which is Blue Trust Loans. One thing that sets Blue Trust Loans apart from many other tribal lenders is the fact that they refer to themselves as a tribal lending agency rather than a tribal lending entity. Is there a difference? Probably not, and even if there is it's probably some small technical filing change from the other Native American registered companies.
The first thing you notice about Blue Trust Loans is their motto which is "Solid And Reliable Financial Support" which seems to be a little at odds with reality. Of course all of these short-term lending companies will make the case that they are helping customers out when they are in a financial jam and in some situations that's true, they are helping. But there is no doubt that in at least half, and probably more like 80% of the time, the customers are just overextending themselves economically for some small, unjustified reason. Buying a stereo, an iPad or going out on a date are not reasons to take on high interest debt that will cost hundreds of dollars over a short period of time.
Blue Trust Loans does stand apart from the crowd of tribal lenders in a few ways, the first being the amount that their top level customers can borrow. Most tribal lenders will loan out a $1,000 loan as their maximum debt level but Blue Trust is willing to issue a $1,250 loan as their maximum.
Why does the company stretch just a little farther than so many other lenders in this field? They might just be trying to differentiate themselves or they might have tiers of lending for higher income customers that the company will trust more than other (lower income) customers. This could be part of the 'trust' in Blue Trust Loans.
Another big difference (and one reason that I personally don't care for Blue Trust Loans) is the fact that there are two fees being charged to their customers at the same time. And this isn't a late repayment fee or some type of NSF charge fee. The two fees are tied to the loan and they both have to be repaid in a timely fashion for the debt to remain in good standing.
The two ongoing fees are the interest fee and the non-refundable underwriting fee. Wait just a quick second here, this lender has an underwriting fee?
When a customer takes an unsecured loan from a company like Blue Trust Loans they are expecting the interest charge, and that charge is normally anywhere from 10% per pay period to over 35% in interest for the customer. But for some reason this lender has opted to also have an underwriting fee associated with the company.
New customers will pay around $.02 per every $100 that is borrowed and that's just for the the underwriting fee there are still the interest rate charges for the outstanding debt. Returning customers get a little bit better of a deal because the interest rate is lower, it's only $.015 roughly per every $100 that's borrowed. No surprise that this customers is not talked about that much. Not too surprising that the customers for this lender are not to be found very readily. It makes one wonder just how many customers signed-up for this strange, and mostly useless, service.
For my own personal choice I'm not going to agree to a loan that has two tiers of repayments, even if one of those repayment formats is classified as "one-time only" which doesn't matter to me. Consumers want a very simple concept for their debt. They want to borrow money and then repay that loan with a basic interest rate that hopefully is not too expensive. And that's all, that is it.
Getting an explanation about how a second tier of charges is going to be applied to your debt, it simply doesn't help anything. The consumer doesn't want to hear it.
Rather than Blue Trust Loans take a look at some other tribal lending companies like Spotloan, Mobiloans, Plain Green Loans and even Clear Creek Lending. All of these companies are just as easy to qualify for (you don't need any kind of a credit rating) and with most of them the consumer is going to be eligible to borrow more money than Blue Trust Loans.
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