SoFi Reviews

I was originally approved for 12 months (having to go thru the process every 3 months, which I find ridiculous if you are approved for 12) of forbearance after losing a job. My income is still very low, though I'm constantly trying to remedy that. After 2 approvals (for a total of 6 months) they have now denied it, even though my income and situation remain very dire. Their customer service is not at all helpful and very tedious to deal with. My income has always been very good and I had never missed a payment before being laid off. I found their attitudes towards this situation to be very demeaning and unhelpful at best.

Poor communication, and the application process was an endless hoops course of requests for information, many of which were redundant. If you didn't contact them, you'd never know that they needed more doco. Co-signer was asked to provide a copy of their college diploma...what other lender would require that?!

Stay away from this company!

The customer service's response was fast; that's the only positive side I had seen with SoFi. Meanwhile, serious issues occur due to their representative's knowledge about financial situations.

They will give you a low rate before you apply for it. Once you get in, the interest rate will go up, and they will keep requesting and asking for documents to support your application.

The review system is a big mess. Your application would get reviewed by about 5 to 6 different people from their review department. Also, different people would give you different feedback regarding your application.

I definitely would not recommend their service if you do NOT meet the following requirements:

FICO credit score: 800+.

Income: 650,000 a year with W2 proof.

Do not care about their high interest rate (9.00 APR).

If you cannot meet the above requirements, do not consider them. It will waste your time. They will not deny your application by keeping sending your application notification.

Also, do not send negative feedback to them during application. The reason is simple: they do NOT like them, and they do NOT care.

I received an offer through Credit Karma and prequalification. Wanting to better my credit and one loan payment, I applied. The application stated I could include others income if applicable, so I included my wife's income.

After two weeks of processing, submitting bank account info, and income verification, a person calls me and tells me that joint application is no longer accepted and that I would have to qualify on my income only. Since I requested a large amount, I would not qualify. They wasted two weeks of my time and the only answer I could get was that the rules had changed.

Be VERY CAREFUL when applying! Credit Karma ought to be ashamed to recommend their services.

If you don't have a credit score of over 800, don't waste your time with this company. I applied for the minimum loan amount of 5,000 to consolidate (4) high-interest Capital One accounts after receiving a pre-qualified/pre-screened offer in the mail.

The company strung me along for weeks asking for additional documents and proofs like utility bills, statements, and acknowledgments I had to obtain and send them. This is high-tech loan processing? I spoke to customer service over this time period, and they indicated to me that my application would have been declined after the credit report was pulled if it did not meet certain credit criteria.

Here is what I received from them, sending me off to another loan company they partner with. Yes, I need another hit on my credit report, and I need to pay a higher interest on a consolidation loan:

"Thank you for considering SoFi for a personal loan. Unfortunately, we're unable to offer you a loan at this time. Attached is a letter we are required to produce under Regulation B. This is also available from the 'View Details' link in the loan status section of your SoFi.com account. If you would like specific reasons why your application was denied, don’t hesitate to call our SoFi Credit Services Team at 855.731.5712.

Although we are unable to approve your loan application, our trusted partner Avant is another online lending platform that may be able to assist. Avant is able to approve some people that SoFi cannot. Like SoFi, Avant offers:

Loan amounts from $1,000 - $35,000*

Fast, easy online application

Great customer service 7 days a week

Apply With Avant!

*By clicking the button, you will enter the Avant website. All unsecured installment loans issued through Avant are made by WebBank, member FDIC. SoFi may receive a referral fee from Avant in the event you take out a loan through Avant. The actual loan amount, term, and APR that a customer qualifies for may vary based on credit determination and state law. Minimum loan amounts vary by state.

Kind regards,

The SoFi Team"

Hope this helpful.

In spite of the company's marketing line ("Our unique approach to underwriting looks at where you are today and where you’re headed"), they were actually little different than a traditional lender. In some ways, they were worse, because they pretended to be better and then just screwed up the loan process.

My customer service rep seemed excellent: I was pre-approved by their automated system for my home refi, but because of some complications with my loan (that I laid out right from the start), he took care to "check with his manager" before we went forward with the application. All looked good. But then SoFi didn't perform.

Assured that all was good, we went ahead and ordered the appraisal (at an out of pocket cost of $800 to me). The appraisal was fine (plenty of value) but the loan was turned down by an admin mistake made by my previous lender. The correct thing for SoFi to do would have been to give me a chance to contact the lender and have them correct the error. But instead, SoFi just dropped me, after 5 weeks of wasted time and $800 out of pocket. My customer service rep was embarrassed and apologetic but could do nothing about it.

The process was long and drawn out. Then they changed their rate from 5.25% to 7.25% for three years. I am not accustomed to paying any interest. I had had enough. I contacted my credit union and had the money the next day at a rate of 3.5% for five years.

To be fair, my experience may have been more difficult because I do not have to work. I wouldn't recommend them.

It is obvious that a lot of reviews here for SoFi are paid reviews because they all talk about the quick speed. I applied for a personal loan, which even after two weeks was still in final review.

There were many things wrong with this whole process.

1. Despite having a fraud alert I never received a verification call from SoFi. In fact, their customer support team didn't even know what was a fraud alert. They kept insisting that Experian needs to verify my information and not them.

2. For ten days after the three-day period was over, I kept hearing the same status that the application was in final review. Even up to this point I had received no call for the verification.

3. One of their managers, Josh Johnson, gave me personal assurance that the loan will be processed by its 11th day and he will follow up personally. On the 12th, 13th and 14th days of my calls, he was nowhere to be found. According to the agents, he had left for home at 12 pm Central time.

4. The entire application was ridiculously slow, and I chose to withdraw it which was with drama again. Upon requesting to talk to a manager before withdrawing the application, I was rather transferred after the rep withdrew the application. The manager said they could not remove the credit inquiry though they had never honored the fraud application or their terms. Plus he said that for the fault of their own reps I had to start the application again. Well, no thank you.

In this same time, we had a mortgage application put in a day after the application for the loan. It was close to a million dollars versus the 35k requested here, and it was approved before this one was. Just to share a reference of how SoFi is NOT what they claim to be.

Oh and quite amazingly was when the manager who called me with a disclaimer that the call will be recorded for monitoring was fazed and said he didn't give consent to the fact that the call was being recorded on my phone. So stay away from these guys. I am sure I would have faced more problems with the loan itself. They seem like frauds and might very well be so. Go with folks more reliable than these guys. Don't waste your time with them.

I was pre-approved and ready to go. I was very excited about getting that monthly payment down for my son, who is just starting out on his career, only to have the rug pulled out from under us in a 24-hour period.

I went through some hard times during the recession but fought hard and pulled through. I quadrupled my income in the last six years, greatly improved my credit report, everything clean, clear, and solid for six years. I have no issues getting large lines of credit or credit cards (that I turn down every day or use and pay off monthly) and thought this was a no-brainer, but not so much. A few "lates" during the recession threw a wrench in the whole deal.

I wish they were upfront and did not give us a pre-approved commitment and dangle that lower payment in our faces only to have it yanked away. I am truly discouraged and think that the initial upfront process could greatly be handled differently. It is like, "hey, look what we can do for you" and then, "oh, we change our minds, sorry, you're out of luck." I understand their high standards of lending requirements, but this is ridiculous. I guess I need to go back and do research on lenders who have reasonable lending requirements. SoFi was our first try.

Ruthless company with poor customer services. I ended up defaulting on my loans due to trauma from sexual assault during my time in business school. All my federal loans were extended, but this company didn't care and ignored my extreme circumstance. My credit took a huge hit.

I received the letter stating I was pre-qualified for a loan, so I decided to see if I could get more info by sharing minimal information on their website and quickly received a decline message. When I clicked on the "view details," it opened another page with "404-error" and a pop up stating "We've lost our marbles. Hang tight while we look for them."

I started a chat and they asked me if I was on Google Chrome, stating that they are having some difficulty and would email me a response. I refreshed my email for 10 minutes and never received anything. I started another chat, with a different person, and they asked me to provide my info (name, DOB, last four numbers of my social security). I got nervous and insisted that I chat with the initial person, as I don't want to provide info that I didn't originally offer.

I asked to speak with the first person again and got, "I don't know her schedule," and that she may not be able to chat again. Even though, supposedly, he was asking her questions for me during our chat. Sounds shady! I never got the email by the way.

I simply called and asked for more information. They were supposed to send an email explaining their program. It didn't happen. Next, I get an email, a turndown letter. I never applied nor gave permission nor my social security number or any of my personal info. They overstepped in my opinion and performed an action I never agreed to.

I called SoFi because I saw the CEO on CNBC. What a joke. Nothing she said was representative of the way I way treated: Call not returned; person I spoke to was like an automaton; nothing I was told was anything close to new or different from the normal rip off that other mortgage brokers handout. I wonder if the rich in this country understand that people lost homes in 2008 and that some people who stuck it out are now suffering from draconian mortgage rules and have no where to turn! Don't waste your time.

Be careful about this company. They say that if you lose your job, they will pause your payments, but if you find another job that pays less than your last one, they will not lower your monthly payments or extend the term of your loan. So when they say: "But if your income is over a certain threshold, you won’t benefit from these programs," they are lying to you.

We decided to give SoFi a shot at providing us a personal loan. Our credit is excellent. After the initial paperwork, SoFi promised a 5% loan, but after the paperwork was done, it shot up to 7.5% with no explanation. After the loan was approved, we were promised the funds would be available within 7-10 business days. Based on that promise, we signed the paperwork. The day before the loan was due to be paid, we went onto out account webpage and found out that the payout was extended to 30 days. SoFi didn't bother informing us regarding this change as well.

We sent them an email complaining about the change. Someone named "John" from SoFi called back and left a message, stating that there was a policy change across the board. We called SoFi back, and the drone on the other end kept repeating that there was a policy change, and that we would get the money within 30 days. When we asked to speak to someone else, they replied back "why, they are just going to tell you the same thing." This was very unprofessional, and left us feeling lied to and cheated by SoFi. Steer clear of this organization!

The SoFi rates are competitive. The online process is easy and you can get pre-qualified without impacting your score. I got approved in a day or so for a personal loan. However, student loans can be refinanced too. Unlike other refinancing options, this one also offers a freeze on commitments in the event you lose your income. This is reassuring. It's worth looking into, to reduce interest charges and possibly help to improve your score along the way. This is particularly encouraging as credit card rates are going to be on the upswing going forward.