Dash of cash reviews and ratings

Ratings on this page come from people who sent a personal loan request through our form and chose to tell us about it. Each rating is one to five stars, and the summary bar averages the star ratings we have received about our service.

Written reviews appear in the slots below only after a real borrower sends one. Slots without a review stay marked as empty. We do not write reviews ourselves, we do not publish sample text to fill the page, and we do not offer money, discounts or better matching in exchange for a positive rating.

When feedback arrives, we publish it with the reviewer's first name or initials only, the general purpose of the request and the star rating. We remove details that could identify someone or expose account information, such as a full name, an address or a loan number. We do not edit a review to change its tone or its score.

When a review may be held back

• It includes personal or financial information about the writer or anyone else.
• It contains threats, slurs or abusive language.
• It is advertising, spam or a link to another site.
• It describes a different company or has nothing to do with a personal loan request.
• It is a duplicate of a review the same person already sent.

A critical review that follows these rules is published just like a positive one. A page with only five-star reviews would tell you very little about how a service handles problems, so honest low ratings are part of what makes the page useful.

Read lender reviews for patterns, not single stories. Look at many recent reviews, focus on specific details such as fees or servicing problems, and check public complaint channels alongside star ratings before you trust any one lender.

Once a lender makes you an offer, the lender's reputation matters more than ours, because that lender will hold your personal loan for months or years. A few habits make lender reviews far more useful:

• Sort by most recent. A lender's servicing team, website and policies can change, so recent reviews say more than old ones.
• Read the three-star reviews. Middle ratings tend to be the most balanced and often describe both what went well and what did not.
• Look for repeated specifics. One complaint about a surprise fee is a story; ten complaints about the same fee is a pattern.
• Check how the lender responds. A lender that replies to complaints with a clear fix is easier to deal with when something goes wrong.
• Use public complaint records. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's complaint database and your state's financial regulator can show whether formal complaints have been filed and how they were resolved.
• Confirm licensing. Many states require consumer lenders to hold a state license, and your state regulator can tell you whether a lender is licensed where you live.

Separate complaints about the personal loan itself from complaints about the borrower's own situation. A review that says a payment was too high may describe a term that was too short for that person's budget, which is a choice you can make differently by testing terms before you accept.

Genuine reviews usually mention specific details and mixed feelings. Be cautious with reviews that are vague, overly enthusiastic, posted in clusters on the same day, or that push you to contact someone directly by phone or message.

• Many five-star reviews with nearly identical wording or the same unusual phrases.
• Reviews that praise a company but never mention a single detail about the personal loan, the timeline or the cost.
• A sudden burst of positive reviews right after a run of complaints.
• Reviews that include a phone number, messaging handle or link and urge you to contact a named agent.
• Reviewer profiles with only one review, posted the same day the account was created.

None of these signs proves a review is fake, but two or three together are a reason to slow down and rely more on complaint records and the written terms in the offer itself.

A legitimate offer shows the APR, payment, fees and total cost in writing and never asks you to pay before you receive funds. Requests for upfront fees, gift cards, wire transfers or immediate decisions are classic signs of a loan scam.

Anyone searching for a quick dash for cash is an attractive target for scammers, because urgency makes it easier to skip a step. Watch for these warning signs, whether the contact comes by phone, text, email or social media:

• Upfront fees. A caller says you are approved but must first pay an insurance, processing or release fee. Legitimate lenders that charge an origination fee typically deduct it from the loan or disclose it in the agreement; they do not ask for it in advance.
• Gift cards, wire transfers or payment apps. No legitimate lender asks you to buy gift cards or send money through a payment app to unlock a loan.
• Pressure to decide now. An offer that expires in minutes, or a caller who will not let you read the terms, is designed to stop you from comparing.
• Approval promised before any review. A lender cannot know whether it will approve you before it looks at your information.
• Missing APR or total cost. Lenders must disclose the cost of credit before you sign a personal loan agreement. An offer without an APR is not one to accept.
• Requests for your online banking password. A lender may ask for account and routing numbers, but never for your banking login or password.

We never ask for an upfront fee, a gift card or your online banking password. If someone claims to be calling on our behalf and asks for any of these, stop and email us.

If you think you have been targeted, stop contact, do not send money and report it to the Federal Trade Commission and your state attorney general. Our how it works page describes exactly what a real request through our form looks like, step by step, so you can spot anything that does not match.

Email your feedback to [email protected] with a star rating from one to five, a short description of your experience with our request form and, if you like, the general purpose of your request.

Helpful feedback is specific. Tell us which step was confusing, how long a reply from our inbox took, or what you wish the form had explained before you started. The most useful feedback helps the next person reading dash of cash reviews, so ask yourself what you would have wanted to know before sending a request.

• Do not include your Social Security number, bank account numbers or loan account numbers in a review email.
• If your feedback is about a lender's terms or servicing, contact that lender first; you can also tell us so we understand how lenders in our network treat borrowers.
• Allow some time for publication, since each review is read by a person before it appears.

Questions that are not reviews, such as how to withdraw a request or stop further contact, go through our contact page. For a plain explanation of how we are paid by lenders and how that can affect which offers appear, see our advertiser disclosure.