LendingTree.com --- Where Banks compete for your money; and charge obscene interest rates
Written: Apr 12 '06
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Pros: you can view queries to your credit report
Cons: not very many loan offers, bad interest rates, few useable features, user charges
The Bottom Line: LendingTree is nothing more than a portal to lending companies, that doesn't fulfill its promises of varied loan offers and good APR's.
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| three_ster's Full Review: LendingTree |
Back when I was looking for a good loan in order to purchase a new vehicle, LendingTree.com was one of the places that I looked for potential assistance. I had seen all of the commercials telling me that this was the place to go, and it seemed an innovative idea where lenders would be competing for my business. I thought to myself that it would be a quick and easy way to find out what potential offers were out in the market, and to find someone that would be willing to lend me the money. I had also fallen under the assumption that this would be a great place to find low rates, and that it would be up to me to set my own terms for the loans. This was a lot of naive thinking on my part, and looking back, it turned out to be a large waste of time for me. The loans weren't quite what I had expected, and the offers weren't as competitive as I had been hoping.
The other main reason that I was willing to sign up at LendingTree.com, was their ability to calculate my credit score, and show me where I was sitting on the "risk chart." Knowing what my credit score was, and knowing what type of risk I would be seemed like valuable information to have with me when I walked into a dealership. So, I decided that it couldn't hurt to go ahead and give the web-site a try. All of the access that I wanted was going to be free for the first 30 days, so I figured that even if I came away with nothing to show for my use of the site, I wouldn't be losing anything but time. With high hopes that I was heading down the road needed to find a nice size loan, with a nice annual percentage rate, I brought up the LendingTree site and went to work setting up an account.
It's easy enough to set up the first time account on LendingTree, but I did have to enter some information that could charge me later if I wanted to use the site privileges after the 30 day trial. I did this having the information in hand that if I were to call their phone number (1-888-272-1355), I could end my new membership and never get charged for it. The site offered many different loans that I could apply for including home, mortgage, refinance, home equity, and automobile. I was in the market for a new car, so I clicked into automobile and was given online forms that I needed to fill out. Their one requirement regarding the amount of the loan was that it had to be above $7500.00. That didn't phase me all that much, because I couldn't think of a new car that I would want in that price range. They ask for your location, amount you want to borrow, the length of your loan, payment options, and a few other questions just to get started. Once you have filled out all that information you become eligible to have loan offers sent to your e-mail address.
Signing up for the trail membership gives you a free trial membership in LendingTree Triple Advantage credit monitoring. It also entitles you to a free credit report of everything that has helped to create your credit score. That report shows you a personal profile, your credit summary, any requests of public records on your record, credit inquiries, your account history, and finally your credit score. All of the items that lead up to your score are explained, and it then shows you what you have based on a sliding scale of 0-800. It also tells you what percentage rate at compared to everyone else in the nation. I found it interesting to look through the numbers, and see exactly what LendingTree was going to offer me under this membership. The main thing being that they would alert me about inquiries to my report, potentially negative information that could be on it, new accounts set up, and public records request of my information that had been filed. It also showed me the transactions, such as what loans I had (once I got one) and how much I owed to institutions.
After looking through everything (later I would come back to look though it even more), I sat back waiting to see what kind of loan offers that might come my way. I was hoping that it would happen right away, but it was actually two days before I saw my first loan offer come through. That was where I started getting a little frustrated right away with how this system was going to work. The loan was just an offer and nothing more, it was from Capital One, and once I saw the offer, I had to actually apply for it from this separate company. It did not guarantee anything to me, and it meant that I had to fill out more forms in order to apply for this loan. Basically it wasn't a real loan, but a computer generated offer that allowed me to re-apply to a different site to maybe get a loan. It turned out that LendingTree wasn't getting me loan offers at all, but high-interest rate potential offers, which could still turn me down in a separate forum. The Capital One loan was offered at a 6.9% annual rate, but that was just to bait me to come to their site, and fill out their forms. The rate they then gave me was not anything close to 6.9%.
The next response came later that same day from a second lender, but the funny thing was, it was withdrawn as an offer that same day. I hadn't logged in till the next day, and found two e-mails: one saying they were offering me a loan, and then a second one from LendingTree saying that they were not going to be offering me money after all. Those were the only two offers I got in the first month of being in their membership. It seemed that being a member was only going to offer me the benefits of seeing my credit reports and scores, and that this LendingTree really wasn't all it had advertised itself to be. It frustrated me that I wasn't getting the offers sent to me that they had promised, and I wasn't a high risk for credit when I signed up with them. That being said, I expected at least a few more offers, even if they were outrageous interest rates. Instead I only had the high Capital One rate sitting in my "report".
After one full month, they ask you to fill out your information for loans again on the site, but at that point I had already received a loan elsewhere and actually purchased my vehicle. I wasn't going to be using the site for loan requests anymore. However, I did decide that the site was going to be worthwhile to be able to see my credit reports, scores, and all of the information about how my reports/scores were being calculated. They charge $12.00 a month for this membership, and I figured it wasn't that steep of an expense, but this was going to prove a disappointment as well. As soon as that first month had been over, everything visible was gone. I would have to ask for a new report to be filed, and would have to pay for the next one. The fee was only to see who had been looking at my report, and didn't cover being able to see any scores, past or present. Yet another frustration in a long line of them for me on LendingTree.com. To put it bluntly, the $12.00 fee really gets you nothing, and it’s just throwing money at one site, to potentially get information from another site. With slow responses to loan inquiries, a relatively low number of responses, and no real extra benefits to the site, this isn't a place that I can recommend. Where I had thought banks would be competing for my loans, I instead found a site only interested in monitoring my credit.
Potentially Helpful Information:
How You Too Can Establish Good Credit ---- A Few Easy Steps That Are Needed
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