What Happens After You Submit a Loan Request on EconoCents

The form at /apply/ is the one thing on this site we are paid for, so it is the one thing that deserves the plainest explanation. This page walks through what the form asks, what happens in the seconds after you click Submit, what the result screen means, and what you can do afterward. Everything here describes how the form actually works today; if the process changes, this page changes with it.

Before you start: what we are

EconoCents is not a lender. We do not make loans, we do not make credit decisions, and we do not set any loan’s amount, fee, APR, or due date. We run a matching service: when you submit a request, we send it to the lending networks you consent to on the last step, and those networks pay us for it. The lenders inside a network decide whether to make you an offer. Submitting a request is not a loan application with any specific lender, and it does not guarantee that you will be matched or receive an offer. We do not charge you anything.

The lenders we review on this site do not pay us, and they may not be among the lenders that see your request. The reviews and the form are two separate things.

What the form asks, in order

There is one form, and it collects everything a lender needs to consider you. Nothing is hidden behind a second application. The steps:

1. Loan amount. One of ten fixed amounts from $100 to $2,500.
2. Loan purpose.
3. Location. Your ZIP code, which sets your state. If our matching service is not available in your state, the form tells you at this step and stops. It does not collect anything further.
4. Email. With an optional box to email you a link back to the request if you do not finish it.
5. Loan details. Monthly income, employment status, how often you are paid and when, a credit-score range, whether you have a car title, and whether you carry high debt.
6. Personal information. Name, phone, and confirmation of your state and ZIP.
7. Address and identity. Street address, time at that address, whether you rent or own, date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s license number and state, and whether you are on active military duty.
8. Employment. Employer, occupation, time employed, and a work phone number, asked only when your employment status calls for it.
9. Banking. Bank name, account type, routing and account numbers, whether you have direct deposit, and how long you have had the account.
10. Disclosures and consent. The full disclosure text, a checkbox for each lending network you agree to send the request to, and the Submit button.

Every field is required unless it is marked optional. The reason a short-term loan form asks for as much as a mortgage application is that the lenders considering it verify identity and income electronically, and the bank details are how funds are deposited and repayment is taken if you accept a loan.

What you are consenting to on the last step

The consent step does three things, and the text on the page spells each out:

• Sharing. You direct us to send the information you entered to the networks whose boxes you check. We cannot control which individual lenders within a network receive it, and you may be contacted by companies you have not heard of.
• Contact. Checking a network’s box gives that network and its participating lenders your prior express written consent to contact you at the phone number you provided, including by calls and text messages, as described in the consent language shown for that network. This consent is not a condition of getting a loan, and you can revoke it at any time.
• Electronic signature and records. You agree to do business with us electronically, which is what lets the request be processed at all, and to receive the disclosures and status emails electronically.

Nothing on the consent step authorizes a lender to take money from your account. That only happens under a loan agreement you sign with the lender itself.

The seconds after you click Submit

When you submit, we validate the request, store it, and send it to the networks you chose. The whole exchange usually completes in a few seconds and is capped at forty; the page waits and then shows one of two results.

“You’re matched.” A lender in one of the networks wants to take your application. The screen gives you a single link that takes you, in the same tab, to that lender’s own site to finish. This is the point where you see the actual amount, fee, APR, and due date. Nothing is binding until you sign with the lender, and you can close the tab and walk away.

“No matches this time.” No lender in the networks you consented to made an offer. The screen says so plainly, links to the lenders we review and to our guides, and notes that you can submit a new request 30 days after this one. A request submitted sooner with the same identifying details is treated as a duplicate and is not sent out.

Whichever result you see, the request already left our site the moment it was sent to a network. A “no match” does not unsend it, which is why the networks and lenders you consented to may still contact you afterward.

The email you get, and the status page

If you gave an email address, we send one message after the result: the same match or no-match information, with a link to a status page where you can look up the request by its reference. That is a transactional message about your request, not marketing. The only marketing email we send is the occasional one described in our privacy policy, and only if you asked for it at the email step; every one carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing stops all of it. We never send text messages ourselves; any text you receive comes from a lender or network you consented to.

If you did not finish

The form saves your progress after the first step so that a page reload does not lose it. If you checked the reminder box at the email step, you also get a link that reopens the request for seven days. When you come back, the non-sensitive answers are restored; your Social Security number, date of birth, license, and bank details are never stored in your browser or prefilled, so you enter them again. An unfinished request is never sent to any network.

How your information is protected and kept

Your Social Security number, driver’s license number, street address, and bank account number are encrypted at rest. The record of your request and your consent, including the consent text you agreed to, its version, the time, and your IP address, is kept for at least five years because the lending networks that receive it are required to be able to show that you authorized the sharing and the contact. Our privacy policy lists the categories of information we collect, who receives them, how long we keep them, and your rights, including the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information.

How to withdraw consent

You can revoke your consent to be contacted at any time by any reasonable method. The direct route is our contact page, with the subject line “Electronic consent”; we honor revocations within ten business days. For text messages from a specific lender or network, replying STOP to that message revokes consent with that sender. Withdrawing your electronic-records agreement with us means we can no longer process a request for you, but it does not undo a consent you already gave to a network, which is why the revocation should go to them as well as to us.

Before you submit

If you have not decided whether to borrow at all, that decision belongs before the form, not after it. Our payday loans page has a cost calculator, payday loan alternatives that actually work covers the cheaper options, and payday loans explained walks through what a loan looks like from the application to the day the payment leaves your account. If you have weighed those and still want to proceed, the form is at /apply/.

This is general information about how our service works, not financial advice. Loan terms are set by each lender and vary by state; you will see the actual terms on the lender’s site before you accept anything.