Currency Finance Review – Caught Misleading & Scamming Clients
Currency Finance is a financing company based in Los Angeles. It is part of Currency, a financial and technology company that offers three different products for its clients: Currency Pay(payment services), Currency Air (aircraft financing), and Currency Finance itself, which we will discuss more in the following section.
If you are not familiar with financing companies, they are simply entities that offer loans and leases for different types of purchases. A financing company is commonly used when purchasing more expensive assets such as houses, buildings, vehicles, etc. In this case, Currency Finance is a company that focuses on equipment financing.
Accordingly, most of Currency FInance’s clients are small businesses looking for financing services to help them purchase new assets or equipment. Just like any other financing service, some terms and conditions apply to each client, but the company itself claims that it can offer financing up to $500,000 with interest ranging between 6% and 24%.
Currency Finance claimed that they were just getting started with their innovative fintech approach to the industry. They are constantly developing Currency Pay, which they hoped could be integrated into Currency Finance. They also partner with major companies such as eBay, TractorHouse, Red Digital Camera, Opus Bank, American Trailer World, and more.
Before we explore this financing company’s reality more, let’s explore its financing services.
Currency Finance Services
A common business model for most financing companies worldwide is that they will offer loans and financing services with interest rates, which end up becoming their profit. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this business model as it has been legally used across the globe. However, there are ways that a financing company can legally manipulate their customers with different types of strategies, which we will discuss more in the following sections.
In hindsight, Currency Finance is no different from most financing services. They offer 2 main services: equipment financing and medium-term loans, which they claim to have flexible terms for up to 72-month payment periods.
To be eligible for a loan, a business must be at least 6 months old and generate revenue of approximately $75,000 a year. Applicants must also obtain a credit score of at least 585 points.
Sure it seems like applying for a loan with Currency Finance seems quite simple and interesting, especially with the reasonable interest rate that they supposedly charge for their financing services. However, you should understand that most financing companies will try to make their services sound as friendly and affordable as possible. Whether or not a company is trustworthy will remain unknown without you doing a thorough background check on the financing company of your choice.
No matter how intriguing Currency Finance is, we recommend you hold back and keep a neutral stance while we guide you deeper into the reality behind It. Make sure to keep reading!
Currency Finance Changing Identity
As it applies to other services, it is always recommended to run a background check before using any kind of service. While it minimizes the risk of getting involved with the wrong company, it does not always guarantee that you are working with a decent company.
You may run into the same problem when searching for Currency Finance. If you browse Currency Finance online, you will find links to their official websites, review articles, and a few other sites which do not raise any red flags, at least not until you manage to discover what we find.
Currency Finance has a decent online presence; now try looking up a financing company called Currency Capital. Like us, you will probably find a bunch of review platforms regarding that particular company. If you click on one of those review platforms, you will notice how this financing company called Currency Capital receives an abundance of 1-star reviews, scam allegations, and tons of complaints from their former customers.
If you are wondering why you are unable to find a website or contact information for Currency Capital, it is because Currency Capital no longer exists. It has been rebranded as Currency Finance. Whether this is a mere rebranding strategy or an effort to escape the bad reviews and scam allegations remains a mystery, but we can conclude that Currency Finance did quite a good job presenting itself as a legitimate financing company.
How can we be sure if Currency Finance is a changed company? Well, one might suggest simply checking the reviews. As we mentioned, Currency Finance has done a great job maintaining its public image online. Thus, we do not recommend fully trusting reviews posted on any other website, especially the ones on their website.
Instead, we will review the allegations against Currency Capital (the previous company) and compare them with the existing reviews on Currency Finance. What exactly are these allegations and complaints about? Let’s find out more!
What is a Red Flag?
A red flag serves as a signal or sign that there may be an underlying issue or danger associated with a company’s stock, financial statements, or news reports. These indicators can come in many forms and are often identified by analysts or investors as any notable undesirable trait.
Track Record
It is extremely easy to fabricate and manipulate one’s public image over the internet. Companies are offering fake reviews services to boost the popularity of certain businesses. Normally, it is not hard to spot businesses with fake reviews, especially on transparent sites such as Google reviews. Unfortunately, Currency Finance is not listed and can not be reviewed on Google.
As easy as manipulating public images and opinions is, bad reviews can spread very quickly and ruin a business’s reputation overnight, just like what happened to Currency Capital before it changed its name to Currency Finance.
Here are some of the reviews and complaints headed towards Currency Capital:
As you can see, these are reviews from different consumer platforms posted across multiple timeframes. There are more of the same reviews that you can find in most online reviews platforms, and you will find that the complaints are regarding scams, fraudulent acts, lack of customer service, and just bad treatment in general.
When you have this many complaints and allegations posted on some of the most popular review sites online, it will be hard, even for large companies, not to be affected. For us, this clearly explains the name change from Currency Capital to Currency Finance.
Towards the end of this article, we will include reviews aimed at Currency Finance to see if the complaints and allegations remain the same. Before, we will look at different aspects of the company’s current state, from the website to the standard strategies they might use to attract naive and innocent clients.
Website Assessment
Avoiding scams and unreliable companies used to be easy before the rapid advancement of the internet. Now that most people have access and are more educated about the internet, it can be said that everyone knows how to set up a legitimate-looking website.
You can check the Currency Finance official website here.
As you can see, Currency Finance’s official website looks nothing suspicious. If anything, it looks quite legit and straightforward, with a proper landing page to contact potential clients. You can also see how Currency Finance partnered with legitimate companies, as we mentioned above. This helps to increase Currency Finance’s credibility.
We are not saying that Currency Finance is a straight-up scammer, but you should be aware that partnering with legitimate companies does not guarantee that a particular company will provide you with proper service.
On the website, you will also notice several supposed reviews from their real clients. However, there is no way to tell if those reviews are real as they did not attach any solid proof or background of these customers.
Regardless, we can safely say that the website does not raise any major red flags and looks like it is from a legitimate company.
Bait and Switch Strategy
As a reminder especially for those unfamiliar with the financing industry, “scams” and “frauds” are not always illegal within the world of financing. Of course, some types of scams are illegal and punishable by law, but there are strategies that financing companies can easily use to manipulate their potential customers legally.
Referring to multiple reviews that we found on Currency Capital and Currency Finance, one of the most common cases is that the company will lure you in with a bait-and-switch strategy, a scheme that is very commonly used in the world of financing.
Remember that bait and switch is a perfectly legal strategy not punishable by law, but it is one-sided, and you would want to avoid it at all costs. The bait-and-switch strategy usually involves a financing company offering you a “too good to be true” credit application that sounds nice and easy. Once you accept the offer, you may not notice anything wrong until you get a phone call telling you there is a “problem” with your credit application.
Next, the company will probably start taking weird charges from your account with all sorts of lies and excuses. The company will then follow up with another credit offer with higher interest rates and worst terms that will benefit only the company itself.
Third-Party Financing
This is another scheme that we found many customers of Currency Finance and Currency Capital have been complaining about. While insisting that they are a first-hand finance company that financed all the loans themselves, several creditors found themselves involved with another party who financed the loan.
Why would a company do that? What’s in it for a financing company like Currency Finance to have a third party involved? According to the reviews, Currency Finance is acting as a broker that connects you and a real financing company. Again, there is nothing illegal with this action, but it certainly comes with multiple adverse consequences that will only be felt by the customers themselves.
As the broker, Currency Finance will offer you a contract with their own interest rates. Accordingly, they will find another financing company to finance your loan at lower interest rates. The remaining margins will then be a profit for Currency Finance.
The main effect on the customers is that they will end up paying higher interest on their loans, which also explains the complaints regarding slow customer services and uncertainties on Currency Finance’s part. Since they are not providing the finance themselves, it is only normal for them to occasionally run into problems with the third party and end up halting the process. This is where they will have to come up with excuses to tell their clients, and the clients end up posting a bad review about the customer services in Currency Finance.
Currency Finance Reviews
Now that you know more about the schemes and strategies behind Currency Capital’s low-star reviews, let’s see if Currency Finance’s renamed company still suffers from the same reviews and complaints.
We have to say, it is quite hard to find any reviews on Currency FInance. Not only is it not available on most review platforms, but the only reviews are in written articles, mostly stating how easy it is to work with Currency Finance. While there is no saying that those articles were fake, we found it a little weird that Currency Finance is hardly on any review platforms, meaning that we can not see real reviews from customers, whether good or bad.
Key Takeaways
Towards the end of this research, there are still many red flags regarding Currency Finance. Our main concern remains how this company managed to hide from customer reviews when its previous identity was reviewed on numerous online review platforms.
