Best Loans

Helpful but didn’t disclose $1500 fee until after loan was approved. Ended up being helpful in resolving our complaint – **EDITED: After trying to resolve the issues we had with Best Loans internally via text, phone, and email with the employee mentioned in this review, we felt like we weren’t being listened to. So I then instead asked for the email address of the general manager. When put through to him, the general manager was very helpful and he was willing to… Read more

listen to our situation and work with us to resolve it. He listened thoroughly and then quickly resolved the issue, and has assured me that they are reviewing the way things are done so that nobody else ends up in our situation. Although we did have a negative experience with part our experience with Best Loans, I would still recommend Best Loans for two reasons - first, they were very helpful in regards to us getting a loan, and secondly, when put through to the general manager, he was understanding when listening to our complaint and willing to work together to resolve the issue. However, I cannot give a 5 star rating due to our experience overall (I originally gave 2 stars, but I have given an extra 2 stars as Best Loans ended up being helpful in resolving my complaint, however I don’t believe our experience was worthy of 5 stars due to the original experience before this - which I’ve explained below). However, if the rate was disclosed in the beginning, and if everything had’ve been explained in the way the general manager said it was supposed to be, I would’ve been happy to give 5 stars. We have been assured that this was a one-off miscommunication though, however I can only review on my experience. If you’d like to read more about our experience, I’ve included it below, however since writing that review, the general manager has resolved the issue to a point that I’m satisfied with and would be happy to recommend Best Loans to others - as long as they make sure that the fee is explained up front, and they also explain their process in the beginning. If they don’t, just make sure you ask.**

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Our experience…

We saw a logo for Best Loans on the Coastmac Trailers website (based in Bunbury WA). As a small family business, we were after finance for a $10,000 trailer, so I thought I’d ask Best Loans to see how they could help.

[Name Removed] from Best Loans was very helpful in saying what we needed to do to get a loan. He said he’d look into which lenders would be willing to do a business loan for a trailer. I said that sounds good, so he went ahead and looked into it for us.

There was NO mention of any fee AT ANY POINT. I assumed Best Loans would tell us before charging us, and when he didn’t mention it, I thought maybe they work on commission or something. However, there was NEVER any discussion or disclosure from Best Loans about any fee whatsoever.

I understand this was in part my fault for not asking. I assumed this was an ethical company. However my eyes have been opened. Always ask in future.

Best Loans got us approval from a lender. This was great news!

However, when the loan contract was sent to us via the lender for us to sign (after we had been approved), there was a line in the contract which stated that we would be paying Best Loans $1500 for their help.

(There was also a $500 loan establishment fee from the lender, which also seemed excessive and I was unaware of until we received the contract, but I understand that is out of Best Loans control, even though I do think they could have warned us about it. However, this caused the total fees payable to be $2,000 for a $10,000 loan).

This contract was the first we’d heard of any fee in regards to Best Loans.

However we felt like we didn’t have a choice at the time, because we needed the trailer, and if we didn’t accept this offer, we assumed it would look bad if we then went through another application process - we didn’t want it to have an effect on our credit report.

Plus also, Best Loans had already done the applications, so I assumed that either way, he would expect to be paid. I had no idea what the legalities were, and I didn’t want to be stuck with a $1500 fee and no trailer. Best Loans hadn’t mentioned anything about how the fee worked (or anything about the fee at all). So we signed, feeling a bit blindsided, and thinking we didn’t have a choice if we wanted the trailer.

The loan went through fine, and we got the trailer. And we just assumed all brokers work this way.

However, when discussing our situation with a local broker afterwards, they told us that any ethical broker would have discussed the cost with us before our loan was applied for, let alone approved, and a $1500 fee for a $10,000 loan is crazy.

We also didn’t receive a tax invoice for tax purposes, so at this point (over a month after the loan was approved), I messaged Best Loans to request one as we needed it for tax purposes.

Best Loans said that they only had the invoice that the lender had created internally, but he would send one over to us.

I thought it was odd that not only did Best Loans not discuss any fee with us at all throughout the whole process, but they also didn’t send a tax invoice until I requested one over a month later.

I explained to the broker from Best Loans (who we’d been dealing with this whole time) how we felt about the excessively large fee, and that a fee was never disclosed to us AT ANY POINT via Best Loans.

He said that the fee that Best Loans gets, differs from lender to lender and he knew nothing about how much we’d been charged.

He said the lender had determined the cost. He agreed it was way too high, however he said there is nothing he could do since it’s all now been settled, and legally they can charge up to $1650 if they wanted, so he said they hadn’t actually done anything wrong. He said he’d speak to his managers though, and he’d see what they said, but he said in his 16 years in the business, he’d never seen a fee changed after settlement.

I received an email back from him the next business day, and in the email, he put the blame all back on us.

In the email, he said that we’d signed the loan contract which disclosed the fee (even though this contract was created at the END stage of the loan process, and it was done via the LENDER - not Best Loans. The only mention to us of any fee at all was one line on page 5 of the 24 page loan contract which we received from the LENDER at the END of the loan process. There was absolutely NO disclosure from Best Loans AT ALL in regards to the the fee).

In the email, he also said we’d had a chance to give feedback after the loan was settled (I’m not sure why this was relevant, as it doesn’t change facts). The feedback he mentioned was the feedback which I completed immediately after the loan was completed, as he said it was important that it was done immediately. It was only after I completed this, that I realised that this isn’t the typical cost that a broker charges for this type of loan, and it also isn’t typical that the fee isn’t discussed beforehand. So unfortunately, my immediate feedback which I submitted to Best Loans as soon as the loan was approved, doesn’t reflect how I feel about the experience overall, now that I understand these things. I found it strange that I contacted the broker we’d been dealing with at Best Loans to let him know our feelings about the fee disclosure and amount, and rather than listening to my concerns, and acknowledging them and using the feedback to do better, he instead replied with copies of my immediate feedback as his defence - as though it’s proof that they don’t need to work on their procedure or charges and they don’t need to listen to me now, because they’ve got the feedback they want. This shows to me that Best Loans isn’t interested in listening to feedback and improving their service. But instead, based on how urgent and important [Name Removed] said this feedback was as soon as our loan was approved, I’m assuming they use feedback as a way of getting bonuses, or they use it to cover themselves if someone complains, rather than using feedback to better their business.

Also in the email, in regards to Best Loans, [Name Removed] said “Our service fees are a standard amount and cover the cost of doing business.”

This was different to what he’d said on the phone the day before. He’d said on the phone that the Best Loans fee changes from lender to lender and he wasn’t aware of how much we’d been charged, but he said it did seem steep for the type of loan we got. However, in the email, he seems to now say this isn’t the case. He seems to now be saying it’s a standard fee.

So based on our experience, Best Loans charges a $1500 fee for small loans of $10,000, and they don’t state this at any point. The client only finds out the fee once the loan is approved and the contract is sent out BY THE LENDER to the client to sign.

I understand that the fee amount that Best Loans charged was legal. And it was partly my mistake for not asking for more information about the fee earlier in the process. However, ethically, I think this is a disgraceful way for a business to operate. Not disclosing its fee until the end, when client feels like they have no choice but to pay it, and charging a minimum $1500 fee for a small loan, then defending this by saying “but it’s legal”. I assumed they would have to disclose their fee before carrying out any work. However they didn’t do this.

So were they helpful? Yes.

Did they keep us updated of the loan application throughout the process? Yes.

Were they overpriced? Yes.

Were they ethical? Absolutely not.

Did I learn my lesson? Yes.

Would I recommend them to a friend? I would tell a friend that Best Loans can help them get a loan if they need one. However, I would warn them about the fee. I would tell them to make sure they get the fee in writing up front, and make sure they agree to it before the loan application process starts.