Fintech SoLo Funds Forced Customers to Make Donations, CFPB Says

Online lending platform SoLo Funds Inc. forced customers to pay tips and make donations without giving them an option to avoid such payments, artificially inflating the costs of the low-cost loans it advertised, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.

Los Angeles-based SoLo offers crowdsourced loans that it says cost less than typical small-dollar loans. Loans range from $20 to $575, with first-time users seeing their loan amounts capped at $100.

SoLo gives customers the options to pay “tips” to lenders and “donations” to SoLo. But in some cases it forced customers’ to do so by removing any option to avoid …