How Loan-Matching Sites Work, and What Happens After You Submit

A common search after filling out a loan form: “why are lenders calling me?” Usually the answer is in the form itself. Many websites that ask “How much do you need?” are not lenders. They collect your request and pass it along to companies that are.

That isn’t sinister on its own. A matching service can save you from filling out the same form five times, and some people find a loan that way that they wouldn’t have found otherwise. But it does mean your information travels further than one application would, and it helps to know where it goes and what you can do about it.

What a loan-matching service is

A loan-matching service (also called a loan marketplace, connector or lead generator) is a business that collects information from people looking for credit and shares it with lenders and other companies. The lenders usually pay for that information, either per request or per funded loan. Some services show you offers on screen; others send your details out and let lenders contact you directly.

The key points:

• The site is usually not the lender. It doesn’t approve you, set your rate or service the loan. The lender does.
• Your request may go to more than one company. Depending on the site’s terms, it can go to several lenders at once, to other matching services, or to companies offering related products such as debt relief or credit repair.
• It can be resold. The FTC’s staff report on lead generation noted that people often don’t realize their information can be sold, and sometimes sold again, to whoever pays for it.

Look for a line in the site’s terms or footer such as “we are not a lender” or “we do not make credit decisions.” Its absence is not proof the site is a lender, so read on.

What happens after you submit

1. Your request is matched

   The service sends some or all of your information to lenders or partners whose criteria you seem to fit (amount, state, credit range, income). This often happens automatically, within seconds.

2. Lenders decide whether to respond

   Some lenders return a prequalified offer based on what you entered. Others will want more information. Many won’t respond at all.

3. You may be contacted

   Expect email, and possibly phone calls and texts, from the matching service and from the companies it shared your request with. Some contact can start within minutes and continue for days or weeks.

4. A lender may check your credit

   Prequalification typically uses a soft inquiry, which doesn’t affect your scores. Going ahead with a full application usually means a hard inquiry. Practices differ by lender, so check what each one says before you continue.

5. You choose, or don’t

   Nothing obliges you to accept any offer. You can compare, wait, or walk away.

About credit checks

Submitting a request to a matching service doesn’t, by itself, mean anyone has run a hard credit check. A soft inquiry is visible only to you on your credit report and doesn’t affect scores. A hard inquiry usually happens when you formally apply, and it can lower scores slightly for a while. Scoring models often treat several inquiries for the same kind of loan within a short window as one, but the window and the treatment vary by model. Our guide to hard vs. soft inquiries has the details.

How to read the consent language

Near the submit button there’s usually a paragraph of small print, often next to a checkbox. That paragraph is where you agree to be contacted. It’s worth reading, even after the fact.

Look for these phrases and what they tend to mean:

“Lenders, partners or affiliates”

Your information may go to companies other than the one whose site you’re on. Sometimes there’s a link to a list of partners; it can be long.

“Calls and text messages, including by automated technology or prerecorded voice”

You’ve agreed to marketing calls and texts that might otherwise need your written consent. This consent generally isn’t a condition of getting a loan, and the paragraph often says so.

“Even if your number is on a do-not-call list”

Your consent is being used to override your Do Not Call registration for these companies.

“Obtain your credit report” or “consumer report”

You’re authorizing a credit check, possibly by more than one company. Check whether it says soft or hard.

How to check who the actual lender is

Before you accept any offer, you should be able to answer one question: who is lending me this money? The matching service’s name is not the answer.

• Find the lender’s legal name on the offer, the loan agreement or the Truth in Lending disclosure. It should be there before you sign.
• Search that name on NMLS Consumer Access, which lists many state-licensed lenders and their licenses. Not every type of lender appears there, and banks are chartered rather than licensed by states.
• Check with your state’s financial regulator. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors links to each state’s agency.
• If the lender says it’s a bank, check that it’s an FDIC-insured bank or a federally insured credit union.
• Note whether the lender claims to be exempt from your state’s laws, for example as a tribal or offshore lender. That changes what protections you have.

Our guide to checking a lender’s license walks through each step, and the lender check tool runs through the common red flags in a couple of minutes.

What to do if an offer seems off

Most contact after a matching-site request is ordinary marketing. Some isn’t. Stop and verify if you see any of these:

• An upfront fee before you get the loan. Charges for “insurance,” “processing” or “to release your funds,” paid before funding, are a classic scam pattern. Legitimate fees are disclosed and usually deducted from the loan or added to it.
• Payment by gift card, wire, money app or crypto. No legitimate lender asks for these.
• “Guaranteed approval” regardless of credit. Lenders evaluate applications; a guarantee usually means the terms are bad or the offer isn’t real.
• Pressure to decide today. Real offers can wait a day or two.
• A caller who won’t name the lender, or names one you can’t find with a license.
• Requests for your online banking login. Account and routing numbers for deposit are normal at the final stage; your bank password never is.

More examples are in our guide to loan scam warning signs. If you think you’ve been targeted by a scam, you can report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

How to stop unwanted contact

You can take back consent you gave on a form. A few routes, roughly in order of how quickly they work:

1. Reply STOP to texts

   Under FCC rules, you can withdraw consent to automated calls and texts by any reasonable means, and replying “stop,” “quit,” “end,” “revoke,” “opt out,” “cancel” or “unsubscribe” to a text counts. Callers generally have up to 10 business days to honor the request. You may receive one confirmation text.

2. Tell callers directly

   Say “Please put me on your internal do-not-call list and stop contacting me.” Note the date, the company name and the number. A company must honor that request even if you’d given it permission earlier.

3. Unsubscribe from emails

   Use the unsubscribe link in legitimate marketing emails. Each company manages its own list, so you may need to do this several times.

4. Contact the matching service

   Ask it to stop sharing your information and to tell you which companies received it. Its privacy policy should explain how; some state privacy laws give you extra rights to opt out of the sale or sharing of your data.

5. Opt out of prescreened offers

   For mailed credit offers based on credit bureau lists, you can opt out through OptOutPrescreen.com or 1-888-567-8688, for 5 years, or permanently by returning a signed form.

What the Do Not Call Registry can and can’t do

Registering at DoNotCall.gov is free and worth doing, but it has limits worth knowing:

• It covers sales calls from legitimate companies. It doesn’t block scammers, who ignore it.
• It can take up to 31 days for sales calls to stop after you register.
• A company you gave written permission to, or that you recently inquired with or did business with, may still be able to call. If you tell it to stop, it must.
• Political calls, charities, surveys and debt collectors are not covered.

For unwanted calls that keep coming after you’ve asked them to stop, you can file a report at DoNotCall.gov. Call-blocking features from your phone carrier catch a lot of the rest.

Using the offers you get

If a matching service did produce real offers, treat them like any others. Line up the cash you’d receive, the APR, the term and the total you’d repay; the offer comparison worksheet does this for up to three offers. A loan you found through a matching site isn’t better or worse because of how you found it. The lender, the terms and whether the payment fits your budget are what matter.

And if none of the offers fit, that’s useful information too. It’s fine to close the tab, opt out, and come back to the question later.