Consumer complaint received 2026-04-01 00:00:00
Product: Payday loan, title loan, personal loan, or advance loan — Installment loan
Issue: Getting the loan — 
Company: OneMain Finance Corporation
State: IL

Complaint narrative:
I am filing this complaint against OneMain Financial for XXXX distinct and serious issues : deceptive advertising practices and suspected lending discrimination based on race. DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING : In XX/XX/year>, I applied for a {$2500.00} personal loan through OneMain Financials website at www.onemainfinancial.com. Their homepage prominently advertises : No surprises upfront terms, fixed rate, and no pre-payment penalty. Checking for offers wont affect your credit score. Get your prequalified offers fast, without hurting your credit. None of this advertising discloses that OneMain Financials loans are secured products requiring vehicle collateral. That material fact is buried in fine print at the bottom of the page. Furthermore, their own Disclosure No. 1 states that larger loan amounts require a vehicle lien reasonably leading a consumer to conclude that a modest {$2500.00} loan would not carry that requirement. As a direct result of this misleading advertising, I submitted an application, disclosed sensitive personal and financial information, and incurred a hard credit inquiry for a loan product that bore no resemblance to what was advertised. A hard inquiry now sits on my credit report that I would never have authorized had the secured nature of their loans been disclosed upfront. I have retained screenshots of their homepage advertising as supporting documentation. SUSPECTED LENDING DISCRIMINATION : I am an XXXX XXXX XXXX. During my application call with a representative named XXXX, I observed a pattern of behavior that I believe reflects discriminatory filtering practices. Rather than evaluating my creditworthiness, she immediately pivoted to assessing my personal assets for collateral specifically asking which of my vehicles had a clear title. When my vehicles did not meet her criteria, she escalated her requirements, demanding personal bank statements. When I explained I am self-employed, she then demanded a cosigner despite the fact that a vehicle was already being discussed as security. At each step, new barriers were introduced. The application was denied. My concern is not simply that I was denied. My concern is the manner in which this application was handled the systematic escalation of requirements that felt designed to disqualify rather than qualify, and the way personal asset information was extracted under the guise of a loan process that was never disclosed to be collateral-based. POST-APPLICATION CONDUCT : After my denial, I called XXXX to request a corporate number to speak with a supervisor. She provided me with XXXX, which is an automated rejection line that reads your phone number back to you, states you did not qualify, and disconnects the call. This was not a corporate contact number. When I called her back to report the number was invalid and to request a legitimate number, she told me someone would call me when they were out of a conference call. That call never came. Providing a dissatisfied applicant with a fake corporate callback number, followed by a promised callback that was never made, reflects a deliberate pattern of evasion that compounds the original deceptive advertising concern..

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation