LoanMart

For my first loan, I made my first payment in January, then my next bill due was on the 13th of February. But I was explaining to the lady that I wanted to pay it off the 28th when I'd get my income tax check because I didn't wanna use the money that I had at the time. I was going through this epidemic while going back and forth sharing cars with my husband. Everything was a little slow and I didn't really like sharing my car. But he finally got his fixed after a couple of days. So, I let LoanMart know that I wanted to pay them on the 28th but they were forceful and said that I had to pay it on the 13th. I told them that I couldn't pay it at the time because I didn't have the money for it, but I was gonna pay them the $3,000 something back in less than a week.

They said that I was gonna get penalized for it and I told them that that was kinda unfair. I was also hoping the penalty would be taken away since I was gonna be late for a week but I was about to pay the whole thing off. Instead of me paying them $600 something, I was about to pay them back all of the money that I still owed after paying one payment. In the end, I completely paid them off in February and they were happy that I did. As for my second loan, they told me that I would be able to get back something and I didn't get that back. So, I didn't like that because nothing had changed except my mileage. Also, there were a lot of hidden details that weren't explained that I didn't like. Still, their program is better than all these other programs where they wanna go by your credit score and things like that. LoanMart's process is also a little bit easier than that of other companies where I've taken out loans before.

There are people like me who don’t know about places like LoanMart, and we would really need help because sometimes we just have jobs that make ends meet and we don’t have the money, and LoanMart does really help us. I told the rep I just needed the money until my paycheck come next month.” And he said, “Oh, wow. You still can take time to pay it off.” I said, "I know. But there might be another time that I need ya'll so I wanted to make sure I paid it off."

I wanted a different date for pay back. I wanted it towards the end of the month when I get my pension. But they came up with an earlier date, 22. I told the person I talked to very clearly that the date was really important and that 30 is when I get my pension. They told me no problem and they processed me. And when I went to pick it up, the lady just gave me the papers that Walmart gave them, for me to pay them on the 22nd, a month from that date. I usually stick with my pension. So, they're gonna have to wait for my pension. During the process, I went through so many people, and they transferred me and transferred me. And when I got back to the first person, they wanna know what I wanted. I prefer to work with just one, the one that can process me.

When you talk to the person over the phone, they seem to be knowledgeable in and the process is pretty smooth. The problem is that from the moment you get the loan, after your so-called welcome call, they’ll give you a call saying, “This message is for--,” and it’s silent, “and if you are not, please press—“ And then it goes on for a while. You don’t even know who they’re calling for, what they’re calling about, or why they’re calling you. At the end, if you’re bold enough as I had been a few times, to listen to go to the very end of all this because you might want clarification of who they’re calling for, why they’re calling you when your loan is new and no payment was due, they will say, “A representative will be on the line shortly.” But no one’s on the line.

They will bombard you with up to four of those calls a day. That is unacceptable. Your payment is still 20 to 30 days out, but you’re getting all these calls starting at 8 in the morning. You know where they’re coming from, but they don’t give you any information why they’re calling you. When I talked to a live person, she said she would stop the call. And two days later, another call.

This is my second time dealing with LoanMart. Before I accepted the first loan that I got from them, and then I pulled back from it, they started sending me letters. I could get a letter two times a month from them. But overall, their customer service is good and the people are friendly. They know their job, but those nuisance phone calls are just a lot to swallow.

With our previous loan with them, the center was about two miles from our place of residence, so I was assuming I was gonna be able to go pick it up at that particular location, but LoanMart doesn’t do business with them anymore. And they said the nearest one is 115 miles away, which wasn’t the case. Then they said they were gonna wire it to me and it would be available in 24 to 48 hours. They didn’t tell me until they were already in the process of actually trying to go through and wire it, and I told them it was not gonna work for me. I needed to figure something else out. I looked it up, and I told the rep, “Hey, look, the places where they gave me this address, it's 42 miles. I will drive that.”

The gentleman that helped me in the previous loan that we had from them got on the phone, and I explained to him. He said, “Well, then you should have dealt with me.” I said, “I need to get it today. I don’t care how we get it, but I just need to get it.” And so, we were able to get that all finally reversed and the loan was processed. Within about an hour, I was able to go up and get the checks, and I could get it deposited to have a cash, and then I got back to the hospital. The timing was really bad, unfortunately, but we got it handled. So, I'm thankful for it.