USA Money Shop was rumored to have some problems. Not financial problems like most companies encounter but rather the right to issue their loan products without the interference of state government regulators. Whether or not that made the company close down for a day, or a week or a month, is now a moot point.
USA Money Shop is now back in business and they have a new agreement with another tribal lender. You might find this other tribal lender familiar, it's Silver Cloud Financial. There is now a strong link (or perhaps even a common holding company alliance) that has USA Money Shop and Silver Cloud Financial operating as a unified tribal lending company. When you look really close (at the fine print on the site) then you can see this is actually a Silver Cloud Financial company doing business as USA Money Shop.
Despite being tied to a better tribal lending company (Silver Cloud is a good tribal lending firm, especially when compared to some others) USA Money Shop is still stuck with low dollar limits on their loans. Reading through their FAQ page I found that new borrowers (first time borrowers) are allowed to borrow a maximum of $800. That's not very much but I do understand the need to limit the losses for customers that are unknown to the firm, so I'm not going to criticize too much here.
But then the same paragraph goes on to say that returning customers (in good standing) may borrow up to $1,000 as a maximum loan amount. Now this is where USA Money Shop and I part ways because that amount is just too low for a good customer who is in need of a real loan, I'm talking about getting a loan that has some resemblence to the traditonal unsecured debt products that a bank would issue a few years ago, like a personal loan or a signature loan. Offering me, as an established customer, where the trust has been put in place because I've already taken money from you and repaid it, plus I paid you the interest you had on the loan, means that I should be entitled to a larger loan amount.
The thing is USA Money Shop can't claim to be following the actions of all the other Native American lenders, because they are not. We have some very solid examples of other tribal lending companies that do offer substantially more in a loan. And these aren't companies like Western Sky Financial that were offering large loans and have since gone out of business, these are tribal lending firms that are operating today, right now and so they can be compared directly to USA Money Shop.
Let's look at two tribal installment lenders, Plain Green Loans and Great Plains Lending. Both of those tribally-based lenders offer up to $3K in a single loan to an individual. Let's look at Mobiloans and American Credit Line. Both of those tribal lenders issue a line of credit product and they both will extend credit up to $1,500 to a customer. USA Money Shop needs to look around at the competition and realize it would be good for their business to enhance their debt load that's being offered. Obviously the company doesn't have to but over the course of time I believe more borrowers will gravitate to the larger lenders rather than these limited $1,000 and less loans.
USA Money Shop has a good thing going with Silver Cloud. The upgraded website looks good, it just looks more professional and user friendly than the site I looked at two years ago. Plus, the new USA Money Shop website has a lot of security features, including excellent encryption software for when (or if) you decide to input your personal information when requesting a loan. Having this solid encryption technology will prevent your information from being lost or stolen.
Also, I noticed something else new, which is that now that Silver Cloud and USA Money Shop have merged (or have somehow formed together through some type of agreement) the USA Money Shop website prominently displays their membership with NAFSA, which is the non-profit alliance of tribal lenders that often lobbies Washington and defends the rights of Native American lenders to issue loans from their sovereign lands.
I respect USA Money Shop a lot for putting the logo of the NAFSA on their front page because it means they are not ashamed of being a tribal lender and they are just putting it out there for everyone to see. A lot of people (particularly some regulators and attorneys in Washington and New York) have been trying to give tribal lending a bad name but that doesn't change USA Money Shop or their alliance.
The only problem I have with USA Money Shop is their low lending dollar amounts. But maybe there are more than a few customers who are interested in just borrowing $500 or $700? I just am not one of them. If you are looking to land an easy tribal loan and want a truly friendly (user friendly) website that has a ton of web security then USA Money Shop is not a bad option for you. But if you're like me and you want a loan that is somewhere in the neighborhood of a loan you received from a bank (as in the year 2004 when banks still actually had unsecured lending as a possibility) then you will look to other, larger tribal lenders for a loan because a maximum amount of $1,000 is not the right figure.
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