When shopping for a loan, it is important to ensure you use a trusted and safe provider.
Unfortunately, with loans it is all too easy for people to fall victim to scams or be locked into a repayment contract with hidden terms and conditions that result in significantly higher repayments than you were led to believe.
As more and more consumers get comfortable with eCommerce and online interactions, the internet is increasingly home to more lenders.
One of those lenders is LendingTree, who describes themselves as a company that “helps you get the best deal possible on your loans. By giving consumers multiple offers from several lenders, we make comparison shopping easy.”
So far so good, but is the service safe to use?
The best way to determine if that is the case is to review the company’s history and opinions from trusted sources.
The first thing to note is that LendingTree is currently the largest online lending marketplace in the US.
It was first founded in 1996 and launched two years later in North Carolina, US.
LendingTree counts other online lending marketplaces such as Bankrate, Rocket Loans, and Zillow as competitors.
This is important for two reasons – the first is that the company has been around for more than 20 years and the second, it operates in a market segment that isn’t new, as demonstrated by the number of other successful competitors.
The second key point demonstrating legitimacy is that it is a public trading company, meaning it is listed on the US stock exchange (specifically the NASDAQ, under the ticker TREE).
As a public trading company, it must adhere to many disclosure and accounting rules, as well as abide by various forms of regulation.
So based on these points, we can conclude it is a legitimate company – however, the question remains is it a legitimate service that is safe to use?
For this, we can only rely on reviews from trusted sources.
One of the best sources for reviewing a business is the Better Business Bureau (bbb.org).
Looking at their ratings for LendingTree, we can see that they’ve given it an A+, the highest possible rating.
While this is another useful piece of the puzzle, it’s always worth looking at individual reviews to get a flavor for customers’ experience using the platform.
In the user-submitted reviews section of BBB, LendingTree currently has an average rating of 3 out of 5 stars.
Delving into the detail, half the ratings are for 1 star and the other half are for 5 stars – there is little in between.
Interestingly, there are common themes for both.
For the 5 star ratings, people were very happy with the quick and painless service.
For the 1 star ratings, people were frustrated by the company seemingly doing nothing but passing on their data to many third-party providers, resulting in customers getting relentlessly spammed via mobile and email, particularly in 2018 and 2019.
So, while both the company and the service can safely be said to be completely legitimate, customers should proceed with some level of caution as customer experience has been a mixed bag of either incredibly good results or relentless spam.
Trade safe!
Disclaimer: The information above is for educational purposes only and should not be treated as investment advice. The strategy presented would not be suitable for investors who are not familiar with exchange traded options. Any readers interested in this strategy should do their own research and seek advice from a licensed financial adviser.
