Idea FinancialReviews of ideafinancial.com

Underwriters are Stupid.

I felt that after you got the loan processed communication fell apart

already left my review...these emails are becoming annoying,

UPDATE: I left a harsh review after feeling we'd been misled on expectations. The CEO decided it was a lie and froze our account. We'd been a client less than a week. Strange way to address a poor client experience.

We took a line of credit but they treated it like a fixed term advance. Initially, they were accommodating and receptive to our disclosed needs. Our company took a line of credit to finance production and expansion of product offerings. Although the offer was only 10% of our gross revenue. After approximately 60 days, we took a position with another lender to pay for a specific expense, unrelated to the purposes we took the Idea LOC for. We also paid the balance of the Idea LOC, improving our cash flow in the process. When we went to access our paid off, but open ended line of credit, we were denied because we stacked a position. Stacking is an ugly word and the concern lenders have of stacking is when a company keeps borrowing high cost advances to fund day to day operations, increasing their operational expenses making the situation untenable. To be clear, their contract had a clause preventing stacking. To be further clear, our revenue increased 37% in a pandemic and this was quantifiable. Unfortunately, Idea would not allow access to our line of credit. To summarize, they gave a low ball offer initally due to I am sure their risk models being adjusted for the events of 2020, and since that approval, our business grew, we made all our payments on time, improved our cash flow, and bought out a partner. Not too shabby by any standards, yet they would not permit us access to a credit facility that our qualifications actually improved over the last few months. This is not a line a credit and Idea is not a lender interested in fostering relationships with qualified, engaged businesses at a time when small businesses need lenders to work with them as many are failing. This is an unfortunate situation as I was the person responsible for choosing Idea to apply to for this financing in the thought that were different from the predatory companies in their space that only care about their ROI. Full disclosure, I work in the small business lending field and understand it better than most business owners applying for financing at these types of lenders. If you are thinking of applying here, I strongly advise you to view the relationship exactly as they do- it is transactional. Edited to respond- imagine working with a business that doesn't have a problem. How novel. Your policy is this issue.

We're continuing customers who had a recent experience that shook our trust in this company. We've had a LOC with Idea for several years which we've always managed responsibly and paid without delay or disruption. In December I requested a draw from our line and received an email back saying the following: "Given the uncertainty of the government response to COVID-19, it is impossible for us to adequately and responsibly underwrite your recent draw request. As a result, we must place the request on hold until such time that there is greater understanding of the impact of this situation." Upon reading this my immediate concern was that Idea Financial was not in stable financial condition and was unable to honor the credit lines due to that. After hearing nothing further for a few days I requested a call with our account manager, Rafael Garcia, and was scheduled for a call a week later. Rafael then explained that the message I got wasn't really correct, and that our draw had been rejected because we'd taken a new term loan outside of Idea Financial months back and our line was frozen due to that. My initial reaction was anger that the reason given in the draw decline letter was a lie, and that now I was being told it was due to a separate issue that was even less explainable. In addition, instead of a contact from our supposed "Client Success Manager" asking about the financing or engaging us about the draw, I had to seek him out to find out the real reason for the decline. Rafael said he was planning on calling me but I just happen to beat him to it, which is already a poor excuse. I told Rafael we had always been excellent customers with a perfect payment history and years of responsible usage, to which he said that wasn't the basis of the decision and didn't really matter to an underwriter's decision. When I responded that it should matter, Rafael said "a lot of things should be in the world that aren't"; I told Rafael that I would never use such dismissive and condescending an explanation to any customer I value, which I can clearly see we are not to him. We continue to pay on a now frozen, and useless LOC and our supposed advocate Rafael could give a damn about our company or how this experience affected us and our trust in this company.

I borrowed from Idea Financial knowing it was a high interest line of credit (25.99%) and high fees (2.99% of every draw). What I didn't expect was to be denied access to my line, when I needed it the most, forcing me to lay off employees. I have a 46k line with 34k available. For 16 months I used the line properly, never missed a payment and never late. I was told due to Covid 19 and the city wide business shut down, they wouldn't allow me to draw. This is exactly why I have a line, to help when I'm in need. I give them 2 star because they at least Re-amortized my loan lowering my weekly payment. Otherwise I would be giving Idea one star. They added to the stress of an already stressful situation. Warning, this is not a bank, borrow knowing they can shutdown your line at will. They need to remove "unwaveringly committed to their customers" from their brand story

Customer service is great however they don't go over full disclosure unless you for hiding fees. if you are considering them I will recommend to read carefully the agreement and ask for a written installment payment schedule and ask as many questions you can to make this is ideal for your business.