Lakota Cash has more than a few reviews online and more than a few of them are quite negative. That's not to say that Lakota Cash doesn't have some happy customers but the tendency of the pleased customer is not to say anything at all.
The displeased customer starts cutting loose on the internet and that's one of the ways we can gauge how good or bad a tribal lender is, which is by doing a rough measurement of how many complaints can be found online. Unfortunately for Lakota Cash there is no shortage of complaints floating around out there. It seems that many of their customers were not too pleased with the service levels they received or with the loan product that was offered to them.
Let's not waste any more time, below is a complaint about Lakota Cash from last year where the former customer says...
I decided to visit their website to apply for a small loan. After I gave them all the information they wanted I got a call from one of their staff and after I spoke with her for a little bit I was told I was approved for $500 as a new customer. Then I was informed what I needed to get (as far as my information and proof of income) over to them in order to process my loan. Over the next three days I was going back and forth from work to my house trying to get all the information so that I could send it to them. After I put together all this information and gave it to them they let me know that I was denied because they say I did not reach the income requirements for their company. Here's the problem which I was never told there was an income threshold that had to be met in the first place. Before the whole experience was over I had been tossed around to at least five different people at the company, and of course no two people said the same thing for the income requirements or any other information. Now when I call them the manager is magically not available. This is not a good way to treat people whether they are your customer or want to be your customer.
Alright, now that is a different type of complaint than we are used to seeing here at the site because most consumers are mad about how they were treated (and how much money they lost trying to maintain their loan) but in this case the customer didn't even qualify for the loan yet was given this big run around about supplying Lakota Cash with all their pertinent financial and personal information.
This is a situation where the first person (customer service agent) that he spoke to should have informed him of the minimum gross (pre-tax) income level so that it could have saved the applicant a lot of time and grief. Instead they let this guy get all stressed about trying to get a loan which he was doomed not to qualify for anyway.
Below is a second complaint about Lakota Cash and it doesn't get much better than the first complaint, as the ex-customer writes...
Please be careful before you decided to do business with Lakota Cash. We (my husband and me) signed for a loan with them about six months ago. The customer service people that we spoke with (there were two of them) were nice and helpful. They gave us three choices as to how we could pay back the loan. They also helped us arrange a challenge password for our account security which was good thinking. But a little later on we forgot that special code number. The problem wasn't that bad until we noticed we could not get a response from Lakota Cash. We tried to contact them by phone, email or by using the company website through their "Contact Us" template, and none of those attempts got us through to anybody at the company. We were not too impressed.
That review adds to the oddity of the first one, and it makes me wonder if anyone is home at Lakota Cash. This is very strange because most reviews are about the outlandish costs of tribal lending and the especially high cost if a customer decides to roll the loan over time and time again, which makes them wind-up paying far more than the original loan value in just finance fees. And that is the strong tendency but here we don't see those complaints, instead it has to do with the poor communication skills of Lakota Cash.
Let's try one more time with a third complaint that is dated from back in 2013, where the ex-customer from Illinois tells us...
Just stay away from these guys. I only borrowed $200 from them but after four deductions from my checking account, with each deduction for $50, I now find myself owing more money than I had originally borrowed. After each deduction I actually owe more money, and after four deductions from my bank account of more than $50 each, I owe more with money every deduction. The company adds a $52 service charge after each payment. Lakota Cash technically does not have an interest rate they charge, but instead they have a service fee which is applied each month that prevents you from paying off the loan unless you pay back all of the loan plus the most current service charge all at once. If you look at it like an interest rate then it works out to be about 50% interest for each month.
Alright, so finally we have a customer who is complaining about the normal problem. This is the type of complaint that I am very used to seeing and discussing. Here we have a problem where a portion of the difficulty lies with the customer himself and another portion lies with Lakota Cash for charging such a ridiculous amount of money in interest.
The problem for the customer is that he most likely signed-up for this amazingly high interest rate and never bothered to read the fine print of the loan. The problem is the fine print is where all the details for the loan are, that is where the lender gets the authority to charge the high dollar amounts.
At the same time why these tribal lenders feel it's morally acceptable to charge such high rates is never really answered. The lenders just want as much money as they can get and they don't care about the financial health of their customers.
If you can't already tell I am not a big fan of Lakota Cash or any of these small dollar Native American lenders. If they aren't willing to lend at least $1,500 then for the most part I'm not too interested in the company.
Recent Comments