Consumer complaint received 2025-10-27 00:00:00
Product: Payday loan, title loan, personal loan, or advance loan — Installment loan
Issue: Getting the loan — 
Company: SOFI TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
State: CO

Complaint narrative:
My wife and I received several pre-screened mailers from SoFi for various loan products at the beginning of XXXX. We decided to use the soft-pull option SoFi offers to see what our rate would be on a personal load for debit consolidation. 

After going through that process, we were pre-approved for a {$59000.00} loan at 15.08 % for 4 years with a monthly payment of around {$1500.00}. This would allow us to improve our cashflow significantly by converting {$3200.00} of monthly payments in to around {$1500.00}. This would help us pay off our debt much faster as we could take the approximately {$1700.00} freed up monthly to pay down other credit cards. After talking about his, my wife and I decided to apply, we put the application in on XX/XX/XXXX. 

Over the next few days, we received texts from SoFi to log into their website and add some additional documentation. The first time was on XX/XX/XXXX. We logged into the website and received 3 requests for information around our income. All three requests were worded exactly the same. I gathered the requested documents and uploaded them 3 times ( one set per request ). This was required on their website to " check off '' the requests and allow the process to move forward. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, we received another text. I logged into the portal and didn't see any additional requests for information. My wife logged into her account and also didn't have any additional requests for information. I called into the SoFi call center and they requested more information on my wife 's income. I worked with the call center representative to get it uploaded via the SoFi website. Becuase the request was not showing in my account the representative had to send me a message in SoFi 's system to request the documents. I provided the documents, the representative confirmed them and we were good to go. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I recived another text from SoFi asking for more information. Again, the website showed no action required from me so I called the call center and talked to a different representative. She had a question about my consulting income. I do consulting on the side, I claim it as a sole-proprietorship and include the income in my personal taxes. I explained this and we were good to go... again. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received a denial and an adverse action letter. The letter stated that we had " Excessive obligations relative to income ''. This is confusing because I provided all required documents showing my income. 

I stated my income was {$370000.00} which included the salaries from my wife and I, as well as our incentive pay ( which is legally allowed to be considered if I want it to be ). I also included a small portion of my consulting income which brought our income to over {$380000.00}. I specifically chose to not include my consulting income in the original statement of {$370000.00} because it's not a steady pipeline of income, however I did provide documentation for it to show SoFi that we made more than what we claimed. 

I provided the front page of our XXXX from XXXX to show our XX/XX/XXXXwhich included all my consulting income from XXXX, the value was greater than {$370000.00} by a decent margin. This was to show that if I included my consulting income, I would easily exceed the {$370000.00} that I claimed. 

The big problem that I have right now is that the reason that the loan was denied should have been caught at the soft-pull stage. If they didn't like my obligation to income ratio, it should have never been pre-approved. Because of this, we took another inquiry on our credit reports and we were given a pre-approval for a loan that SoFi never intended to fund.

The other option is that the SoFi underwriters failed to get all the documentation they needed, failed to process the documentation correctly, or chose to ignore parts of my income when they should not have. 

I received no communication from SoFi Underwriters for clarification of income. With other, more traditional and reputable lenders, if an underwriter has concerns, they reach out to us for clarification, explanation, and to work out the details of what they need to approve the application.

Some examples of how SoFi dropped the ball are : 1. Their website did not accurately reflect the requests for documents and additional informa
tion. This was discovered when calling their call center to try to figure out what the texts were asking for.

2. SoFi disproportionally asked for income information for my wife for years XXXX and XXXX where they did not ask for this information for me. I switched employers in XXXX of XXXX and I expected them to ask for documentation on my previous employers ( paystubs, etc... ). 
3. SoFi underwriters did not make any attempts to contact me for clarification on concerns before denial. Due to the amount of effort I was required to put into this application, any concerns at the underwriting stage of the process should have had open and clear, bi-directional communicaion. 
4. SoFi should have never pre-approved the loan if they did not like the debt to income ratio. Failure to stop the process at this stage caused additional harm to myself and my wife, wasted everyone 's time and energy, and shows a complete failure process on SoFi 's side. 

I have an exceptional payment history with all my lenders, including a past SoFi loan that I have paid off. I'm extremely disappointed and frustrated with my experience with SoFi.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation