OneMain Financial

Again I was inundated with several harassing and debt collector tactic calls a day even from different One Main branches. I called my One Main Financial Branch in which I was told the manager was calling about my payment. The representative asked me to hold while I waited for the manager to come to the phone. The representative asked me was I affected by the Winter Storm and replied, "Yeah, with over $3000.00 in damages." He explained it would be a forbearance but without documentation. This concerns me without me signing paperwork.

I made all the same mistakes with my loan that many other one-star reviewers did. I took the loan because they offered it to me. I paid little attention to the horrible interest rate. And I only later wanted out of the loan. Luckily, I have a 401(k) I can borrow out of, so I am self-re-financing this loan, which is unfortunate. But this OneMain Financial loan’s interest rate is really bothering me. By borrowing the pay-off out of my 401(k), I will drop my interest to 3.5 percent, and I will pay back my retirement account very aggressively, to do the least damage. And I will save myself from wasting another $4,000 in interest. Taking this loan was not a good move for my overall financial picture. I should have taken a second job. Nothing I bought with that money was worth wasting $4,000 in interest in just 18 months.

But I am not angry at OneMain Financial! They did not force me to take the money, they offered it. The interest rate and all the useless add-ons they offer are completely disclosed in the paperwork you sign. I declined all of their add ons. NOTE: They position those add-ons as required, and you can – like I did – cross out every one of them before signing. There is no predatory lending here. I signed for the loan, and that’s on me, not them. There was no coercion, no sleight of hand. Granted, this is hardly an A-Team of banking executives. It has the feel of a used car lot finance office, in the appearance of the staff and the behavior of some of them. But the borrowing transaction was honest and convenient. (It is NOT dishonest to charge a lot of money for a service.). To be expensive is not the same as being predatory.

For the person who is going to sue over predatory lending, you most assuredly will lose. To be a lender, any lender, is to be in the risk business. They are taking great risk in lending to those of us who have, or had at the time, poor credit. All lenders charge more for higher risk loans, and most refuse to lend to low credit score borrowers in the first place. Try to focus on the reality: at the time my score was barely 600, I signed my name and they deposited $11,000 in my checking account. $11,000 is real money. I was happy at the time. As the account aged, the regret started to set-in. Lately, refinancing this loan has become a bit of an obsession for me.

I am talking to you if you are considering one of these high-interest loans. Before you sign, is this absolutely necessary? Can the purchase(s) wait? Can you borrow the money from family, or out of retirement? Can you pick up a side job, in say delivery or security? Because once you sign, and they give you a big chunk of money, there will be a day when you are sad about the amount of interest you are paying. And you may or may not be able to re-finance. Don’t waste thousands and thousands of dollars in interest. Thank you for reading.

By the third day when I checked my bank account, there was no deposit and the money for the payment was taken out. So I called and was told there was a "fund deposit issue" and they would call me back with answers. So a day and a half goes by with no return call. So I called and was handed over to a different rep. She said the same that there was a "fund deposit issue" and they were resubmitting my paperwork. Long story short, they never returned my calls, if a wanted any info as to what was going on I had to call them. On numerous occasions, I was told they would call me (even saying the branch manager would call me) but they never did. I as the customer always had to call them.

When I finally did get a call it was at 6:30 PM Friday evening and I was at the grocery store and right away the rep starts going over the closing statement. I let her know that I didn't have access to a computer to digitally sign the paperwork and we agreed that she would call me back on Monday between 3-6 PM. Well on Monday 6:00 PM came and went so I called them. The woman who answered the phone stated that the rep who was suppose to call me left for the day. I received a call15 minutes later and the rep I spoke with tried to explain that the whole process of "booking" the closing would have to be done all over again. So we agreed that she would call me the next day at 2:00 PM. Yes, you guessed it 2 PM came and went with no call.

She did however call after 3:00 to say they were having yet more issues and that she would call me later. I explained to her that in the past it would take two days at most and was wondering why we were now at the end of the second week and still couldn't get this done. I also asked her why no one from that office has reached out to the me to keep me informed on what was happening with their loan and why I had to keep calling them back (I waited some times a few days for a call but never got one). She had no response except to keep saying sorry. Well she never did call me back later.

So I called another lender Freedom Plus. Within 2 hours I had a loan for $20,000.00 with them paying off one of the Onemain loans and two other credit cards and put some money in my pocket. In two hours they made it happen, OneMain was going into week three with zero results, no calls from any reps being informative to the customer on what was happening, no planning with the customer on when the "closing" or "booking' was going to happen. Just one huge lack of any coordination on Onemain' s part all together as to NOT inconvenience the customer or in this case keep a long time customer. Prior to calling Freedom, I did call Onemain back one last time. After eight minutes on hold, I hung up. Lastly, the branch where I live knew about what was happening and filed a complaint with corporate. That was last week, still haven't heard back and doubt I ever will.