Should you take a loan from Big Picture Loan? Personal loans $200 to $5,000 for Bad Credit

Big Picture Loans offers loans between $200 and $5,000 for people who have bad or poor credit. If you're approved, they will deposit the loan amount into your bank account on the next business day. Sounds easy and convenient, but should you use Big Picture Loans to cover your next financial emergency? We'll tell you everything you need to know about Big Picture Loans so you can make the best financial decision for your financial life. We've spent years in the lending industry and we track all of the details for about 100 national lenders. We understand their policies, their procedures, and what you can expect when you work with them. The first question people often have about Big Picture Loans is what is their APR? Their minimum APR is 160% and their maximum APR is 699%. However, you can only qualify for their minimum APR if you are a returning customer in good standing. The lowest APR a new customer can receive is 250%. 699% is a really high APR by any standards. Most states have usury laws that prevent interest rates that high. So the obvious question is how are they able to issue loans that cost that much? Big Picture Loans doesn't have to adhere to state or federal lending laws. That's because they are owned and operated by the Lockview-DeSere Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, which is a federally recognized sovereign nation. That sovereignty grants the tribe a degree of autonomy and self-governance, which can exempt them from certain state and federal regulations. It's the same principle that has allowed tribes to open casinos in states where gambling is illegal. Big Picture Loans is very open and transparent about their tribal lending laws. You can actually access their financial regulatory code from their website. In that document, they point out the federal laws that they adhere to for the convenience of their customers, but APR caps are not included. If you want to apply for credit from Big Picture Loans, you will need a bank account, phone number, email address, and be at least 18 years old. The application will ask for a range of information, including your full name, social security number, date of birth, valid driver's license, cell phone number, home address, and whether you rent or own your home. Finally, they will ask you to provide the username and password to your bank account. They use that information to verify your identity, your income, and other financial information. While that seems awfully intrusive, more and more lenders are requiring it as part of their application. If you refuse to provide bank account credentials, they could deny your application or offer you a minimal amount of money at one of their higher APRs. If you are 10 days late on a payment, they will charge you a $20 late fee. $20 is one of the higher late fee amounts for companies that offer personal loans, especially loans targeted to people with poor or bad credit. It's not uncommon for companies to not charge a late fee because they know the accruing interest is high enough to dissuade borrowers from being late if they can help it. A 500% APR is hard to intuitively understand, so let me provide examples of what it would look like for you. If you borrowed $500 at a 500% APR for 12 months, your biweekly payment would be $89. Over the course of the year, you would end up repaying $2,302, ultimately paying over $1,800 in interest. If your financial emergency requires you to borrow $500, the idea of spending nearly $2,000 on interest can be hard to swallow. BitPicture Loans does not charge a prepayment penalty, so it would be important that you pay the loan off as early as you possibly can. Consider that $500 loan at a 500% APR. If you make biweekly payments for two months and then are able to make a lump sum payment to pay off the principal, you would end up paying a total of $847. Instead of paying $1,800 in interest, you would be paying just under $350. That's why it's so crucial to pay off this kind of loan as soon as you possibly can. But before you take a loan from BigPicture Loans, you owe it to yourself to shop around. Lenders who serve people with poor to bad credit often have their own algorithms for deciding who to approve and at what rate. Instead of using credit score, they will often look at other information in your credit report. That means that some might deny you while another one would approve you. At the UConn Project, we've tried to make shopping around easy. If you visit our Marketplace page, you can enter the amount you are looking for and your credit score to see some of our featured lenders in that space. You can apply to any one of them. Behind the scenes, we will check your rate with up to 40 other lenders. Our partners use a soft credit check, so applying won't hurt your credit score. We will show you all of the lenders who would approve you, so you can be sure to pick the one that's best for you. If you have any direct experience with BigPicture Loans, please leave a comment below. We're trying to build a community of people who can share their experiences so we can all make better financial decisions. If you found this information helpful, please like this video. Your support helps us out and we appreciate it. Thanks for watching.