CashUSA review for personal loans for people with bad credit scores

Are you wondering who CashUSA is? Wondering whether they are legit? Who they are? What they do? Should you use them? There are some pretty compelling reasons not to use CashUSA and today I'm going to explain what they are. Let's get started with a clarification point. Are CashUSA and CashNetUSA the same? No, these are not the same company. CashUSA is a lending marketplace that connects borrowers with lenders who offer personal and bad credit loans. CashNetUSA is an online lender that offers payday loans, installment loans, and lines of credit. What is CashUSA and what do they do? CashUSA is not a lender. They're actually what's called a lead aggregator. They collect and share your information with their network of lenders. While this sounds like it would be a good idea, there's a problem with their methods. They share your information through what's called a PingTree. They use the PingTree to get you the loan offer that will pay them the most money, not the one that would be the best for you. In fact, CashUSA says exactly that in their disclosures. Here's the quote from their website. We often use a PingTree model similar to Google AdWords to connect the highest bidder to a consumer. So if you receive a loan offer, it is likely from the highest bidder and not from the lender offering the best loan terms. What is a PingTree? This is just industry jargon for a process of selling a lead through an auction process. In simplistic terms, a PingTree lists all the lenders based on how much money that lender is willing to pay CashUSA for the referral. CashUSA starts at the top of the list and moves down until they find a lender who will pay them for a chance to lend you money. In this system, only the highest bidder gets a chance to offer you a loan. You will never see who else might have given you a loan. What APR can I get from CashUSA? On the front page of the CashUSA website, they list their APR range from 5.99% to 35.99%. But remember, they are not a lender or a broker. That means the Truth in Lending Act does not apply to them. And so, those numbers are probably meaningless. In fact, they list those numbers up front in order to satisfy Google advertising limitations on high interest lending. Google doesn't allow paid search ads if the website advertises loans with rates above 36%. So, they only advertise loans below 36%. They do probably have some lenders in their network that offer rates below 36% some of the time, but not on small dollar loans. I suspect that the overwhelming majority of their customers are offered loans with considerably higher APRs. They state, as an APR example, if you borrow $1,500 over a term of two years with an APR of 7.9%, you will have 24 monthly payments of $6,777 for a total amount payable of $1,626.54. Mathematically, that's accurate. But this is not a valid loan for anyone. In this hypothetical loan, the lender can make a maximum profit of $126.54. But the pin tree will typically charge the lender more than that, often $150 to $250, sometimes as much as $350. Add all the costs of lending on top of that, and there's only one logical conclusion. That loan doesn't exist, even for people with excellent credit. I would be shocked if anyone got a $1,500 loan through CashUSA with an APR below 99%. Is CashUSA legit? This is a trickier question to answer than it sounds. They are a real website that's designed to connect potential borrowers to licensed lenders. In that sense, yes, they are legit. But they do that by sending its customers to the lenders who give them the highest referral fee, not necessarily the one that will give the customers the best loan. So, the company is legit, but that doesn't mean I would do business with them. What is the minimum credit score for CashUSA? Because CashUSA is not the lender, there is no minimum credit score requirement to submit your information. And because pin trees primarily operate with lenders who offer low-dollar, high-cost, short-term loans, there is really no minimum credit score to get a loan. Is it a good idea to use CashUSA? No, I don't think you should use CashUSA, even if you have bad credit. When you submit your information through a pin tree like CashUSA, you are sold to the highest bidder, and you have no choice in your lender. There are better options, even when you're desperate. If I need a loan and I have bad credit, what would be an alternative to CashUSA? My first recommendation is always to check with your credit union, if you have one. But if you're looking online, consider our marketplace at the UConn Project. You can see some of our top lenders there. Just pick one and apply. We will check your rate with up to 40 lenders and bring you back the best offers we can get you. Hopefully, you'll get multiple offers, then choose the lender that meets your needs. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee you'll be approved, but we will try to get you the best loan available and give you the power to choose. Thanks for watching this video. If you found this information helpful, please consider subscribing to our channel.