Loan Inquiries Shops...Are They a Headache?

December 01, 2025 01:32PM

Loan inquiries across multiple websites! Are these easy or a pain in the neck?

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December 01, 2025 02:11PM

Do you mean the one with SeeLevel? I have done quite a few different loan shops, but that one only once. It took me a little over 3 hours, nose to the grindstone, and I didn't have a learning curve. If you aren't experienced with loan shops figure 4 hours plus, then decide if it is worth it to you. You really have to pay attention to detail and just understanding the guidelines will take a good chunk of time.

December 01, 2025 02:23PM

Having done it once and now being eligible again (once every 6 months), I will consider it if it becomes bonused. Too many lenders for the base price especially considering Curinos pays double that pay for each lender.

December 01, 2025 03:11PM

Fire,

As Jazzy posted and I agree, Curinos has, by far, the highest pay for loan applications. If, though, for any reason you are unable to work with Curinos, the Canadian MSC offering those shops is reputable. I have been contracted with them for almost 20 yrs, and have never encountered a problem. Unfortunately for me, their pay scale is usually, but not always, below my minimum.

December 02, 2025 01:22AM

I think the biggest headache is the 4+ daily emails from Jen Gunter insisting that today is THE VERY LAST DAY EVER! these loan inquiry shops will be available. I'm sure she is great, but apparently someone told her to send the same email multiple times a day and that will be the trick...#makeitstop!

December 02, 2025 06:04AM

Jen Gunter is a good scheduler, I do stuff for her regularly and we've never had a problem. I don't do loan inquiries mostly because I don't have good credit. But I would if they were bonused enough and would let me use my current credit score..

December 02, 2025 01:09PM

@Morledzep These say 621-660 FICO.

December 02, 2025 11:16PM

Fire, yep.. my credit isn't that good. I didn't use any credit for a VERY long time, I only paid cash for what I needed, including the land that I own. But being retired and having my sole form of income being mystery shopping for nearly 12 years put a hitch in my getalong. And when my POS Jeep died I had no choice but to finance a replacement vehicle. So I'm currently paying $$$ in interest, on an extra long payment schedule for a car that is only worth about 3/4 of what I owe. I'm going to refinance it right after my credit score goes over 600, and yes, I'm watching it closely. Then maybe I'll be able to do those shops and make a few extra $$ too.

December 03, 2025 02:47PM

The the email advertisements for these shops say that they take about 2 hours. Is that accurate or are they being dishonest?

December 03, 2025 10:33PM

@thunderdeacon wrote:

The the email advertisements for these shops say that they take about 2 hours. Is that accurate or are they being dishonest?

I have always seen the time quote listed as 2.5 to 3 hours. I mentioned above the one I did took over 3 hours and I have a lot of loan shop experience. On a FB group a new shopper was posting about already being 4 hours in and still was only half way done. Depending on your familiarity with this type of thing I can see it being disastrous for many. There is a reason she is begging every day….

December 11, 2025 05:36PM

Hi, I am the scheduler for these shops, while the personal loans do take the longest we have three other programs that take maybe an hour to complete. We have loans for shoppers fico score 300 - 900. One of them is a auto loan program that you have to have a current auto loan $9,000+ and a Fico Score 550+. We also have a Heloc Shop where your score has to be 680 or higher, but you have to own your home and be making payments on them. The last loan shop is small dollar loan and your fico can be 300-600. There is a 60 day rotation if you got offers, otherwise its 6 months. If you have any questions let me know.

December 11, 2025 10:46PM

leah states--We have loans for shoppers fico score 300 - 900.

Bob comments--Either the scoring system has changed, which is possible, or leah is mistaken. When I was working in a financial capacity, the highest credit score was 850. I personally never encountered anyone with that number.

December 12, 2025 03:12PM

Hi Bob, we have small dollar loan that is Fico - 300 - 660. Takes 1 hour to complete - Exclude: Connecticut, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin

Heloc - Fico - 680+ Takes 1 hour to complete - Must be a home owner and making payments. Excluded States - shop - Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Georgia, Texas.

Auto Loan - Fico - 550+ Takes 1 hour to complete - must have a current Auto Loan that is $9,000 or higher and have at least 24 months remaining on your auto . Excluded States - LA, MD, NV, WV, CO.

Personal Loans - 620+ Takes 3 hours to complete - Excluded States - - MA, WV, NV.

December 12, 2025 04:01PM

It depends on which program you are completing. Personal loans take the longest but pays the most.

December 12, 2025 04:17PM

Leah shares--Personal loans take the longest but pays the most.

Bob posts--Leah, in none of your posts have I seen a quantification of "most." To paraphrase Clara Peller, "What're the fees?"

December 12, 2025 04:41PM

Small Dollar is filled for this month.
Personal Loan is paying $150 + $25 Bonus
Auto Loan is paying $100 + $25 Bonus
Heloc is paying $100 + $50 Bonus

December 12, 2025 09:24PM

Thank you Leah.

December 12, 2025 10:30PM

I have not done these for this msc however I would imagine the experience and time needed for each shop is similar as the shops sound very similar. The amount of time needed varies a lot. Some of the shops I have done have lenders who ask very little and quickly show the information the job requires while other lenders require you to get and email or to click somewhere else and provide more information.
Once in a while I have hit a lender that wants to send me an email or two which may not come until the following day so I have to put the job aside and finish it later. Overall I can sometimes do one in 15 minutes but others take longer so it ends up taking over an hour or two for all of them with none of the longer lenders. This of course depends on how many lenders they are assigning. I have seen jobs where they do not say how many. Typically I have done around 6 lenders for each job

December 12, 2025 11:28PM

These are 7 lenders for each different loan.

December 31, 2025 07:19PM

I've done loan shops for a few different companies and they are pretty easy. I'd say it usually takes longer than the time they give. I try to do it in chunks throughout the day so I'm not staring at the computer all day. It's worth it to not leave the house. Just make sure you take screenshots of everything and save them! Look over the survey before you begin because a lot of them want a screenshot of the information you use (like car make, year, salary, etc.), but that part isn't stated in the guidelines.

January 26, 2026 01:37AM

Here is my experience with a bundle of 8-10 personal loan shops.
Time taken: about 2:30 PM until 8:30 PM, working mostly consistently with breaks for meals, etc.

Shop1: Company A, $5K
Shop2: Company A, $10K
Shop3: Company A, $25K
Shop4: Company A, $50K
BUT THEN:
Shop 5: Company B, 5K, 10K, 25K, 50K
Shop 6: Company C, 5K, 10K, 25K, 50K
ETC ETC.

So the first 4 shops are fine, because they're similar and have a similar amount of work. Then when you get to the rest of the shops, each one asks you to report all those amounts, sometimes with and without fees, so those shops are roughly 4x-8x as much work as the first few. It also takes me a little longer because I'm not as fast with Mac shortcuts and that's all I have access to right now. So all the screenshots and uploading took me a while until I figured out a workflow.

There's a lot of instructions, 98% of which are pretty clear, but still a solid amount of work. It's also not a shop you can repeat often, so it's hard to learn to get quicker at it. Overall, I would repeat the shop (assuming everything is accepted and I get paid!). Will update if I have anything to add!

P.S. If you have a very high credit score and minimal credit history, you can do this shop faster because you get rejected for a lot of it!

March 29, 2026 11:48PM

Questions;
1- Are we required to use our real Names or can we use aliases?
2- Are we required to provide our personal financial data such as SSN/banking info?
3- Will these inquiries ding our credit? If so how many times?
4- Is our information secure?
5- Are these mainstream lenders?
Thank you.

March 29, 2026 11:57PM

@bradkcrew wrote:

@thunderdeacon wrote:

The the email advertisements for these shops say that they take about 2 hours. Is that accurate or are they being dishonest?

I have always seen the time quote listed as 2.5 to 3 hours. I mentioned above the one I did took over 3 hours and I have a lot of loan shop experience. On a FB group a new shopper was posting about already being 4 hours in and still was only half way done. Depending on your familiarity with this type of thing I can see it being disastrous for many. There is a reason she is begging every day….

Yes. These are posted everywhere, and there hasn’t been full disclosure in advance.

March 30, 2026 01:29AM

I did one of these (a single set of multiple inquiries) a few years sgo. You need to get real offers for loans., so of course you hsve to provide your own real information.

It paid well. It took a long time. I have not been tempted to do one again.

@SBP wrote:

Questions;
1- Are we required to use our real Names or can we use aliases?
2- Are we required to provide our personal financial data such as SSN/banking info?
3- Will these inquiries ding our credit? If so how many times?
4- Is our information secure?
5- Are these mainstream lenders?
Thank you.

Shopping South Jersey, Southeast Pennsylvania, and Delaware above the canal since 2008

March 30, 2026 04:06AM

SBP in answer to your questions above, yes you do use your own credit score and name.There are several different msc that do these shops so I am not sure if they are all the same across msc but the ones i do I have to supply my own info and credit score but no personal banking info is required. The shops are often a soft pull which supposedly will not ding your score. They often will ask if you are willing to do a hard pull on your credit and generally offer higher pay for that particular lender.
I have usually heard of most of the lenders but they have an assortment from old style brick and mortar banks to online banks I have heard of but dont know much about.
As far as the info being secure, they are about as secure I would think as any website which you may read just got hit last week....I have seen over the years some very strong companies that are household names and seem to be a company that is totally trustworthy putting out a notice that they have been hit and found a list has been stolen. Basically it seem s no where is 100% secure these days, not even Fort Knox.

March 30, 2026 05:05AM

Appreciate your detailed reply Sandy.
It’s a risky landscape.
I tried an assignment posted by a different company. Two browsers on different devices flagged 3 of the 7 sites on the list as AI clones with red flag warnings. I was grateful I hadn’t shared any personal info.
ID theft is a risk none of us can afford.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2026 05:07AM by SBP.

March 30, 2026 07:25AM

@SBP wrote:

Appreciate your detailed reply Sandy.
It’s a risky landscape.
I tried an assignment posted by a different company. Two browsers on different devices flagged 3 of the 7 sites on the list as AI clones with red flag warnings. I was grateful I hadn’t shared any personal info.
ID theft is a risk none of us can afford.

That is very interesting. Were these sites you googled yourself with the name of the lender or did you click on the url supplied by the mystery shop company?

March 30, 2026 05:44PM

Folks, I guesstimate I have, over the yrs., completed at least a dozen sets of the loan applications and have been quickly paid top dollar by Curinos. I do not recall any of the work exceeding 2 hrs. and communication is outstanding.

March 31, 2026 04:52AM

SBP, how were you made aware that they were AI clones? During your efforts to complete the shops? What exactly did you do that made you think they were AI clones? What MSC was this? Did you report your findings to them?

You tried a shop? Did you use your real name and credentials? What were your instructions/ guidelines? What was the outcome of your attempted shop? Success?

Regarding your questions about using real identities, etc. ask directly to the MSC. In all of my many, many financial related shops for different companies and MSCs, it's all about the real me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2026 05:00AM by Madetoshop.

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