Lots of discussion on the board about TrustPilot reviews, etc for both Affirm and Upstart. At least for Upstart, well over 90% of the reviews on TrustPilot are triggered by invitations from Upstart. Still an incredibly positive ratio of feedback.
I usually rely on Reddit for a different (unfiltered) view when it comes to consumer sentiment on products/services. The Personal Finance subreddit is massive with 14.9M members. The following link is a search on this subreddit for string = ‘upstart’, sorted by most recent.
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/search/?q=upstart&a…
You can take a look at the individual posts. Reading through many of them, Upstart seems to be an option for many people, but the reviews tend to be less flattering. Many users complain of the high rates and other users then comment that they should definitely check their local credit union for more competitive options (and also suggest some other companies other than Upstart).
The frequency of reviews for Upstart is less on this subreddit than TrustPilot or Credit Karma, but there is more than enough to get a picture, one that is not as rosy.
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I don’t get this hand wringing over a bunch of unscientific reviews. Why don’t we stop this nonsense and concentrate on the actual numbers provided by the company. Earnings reports are the numbers that matter. I am fed up with wasting my time reading a bunch of non-scientific bs, unless of course you can show a correlation between such jibberish and a company’s future prospects. This might sound cranky, but the board has recently become awash in such nonsense. If you having nothing material to add, that’s fine, but don’t waste my time by writing posts about some nonsense poll which companies manipulate at will.
Gordon
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While I think the tone of Gordon’s last post may be a little unnecessarily harsh (I think we all have a right to be concerned about the management and culture of a company we’re investing in - and due diligence is the brick and motor of the board) I also am always wonder how much wieght I should put on these or if I should be taking these reviews with a grain of salt.
It is as mentioned before, very unscientific and not-statistical by any means. There is always an issues with reviews only being very good or bad (look at any healthcare providers online reviews) bc that’s what motivates ppl to take the time and effort to leave reviews. I’m never sure if these are the outliers or a good randomized sample. Going back to the doctor example, the factors that most impact our patient satisfaction scores are 1. Parking and 2. Dining options. Nothing about treatment or outcomes. Nothing in our control
That being said many of the recent surveys do seem well thought out and in earnest and many do have a consistent theme which is concerning. But again how much weight to put to this.
It would be interesting to have known what the trustpilot/glassdoor/reddit reviews on management were for Tesla in 2015 or Apple in 2000. Did this correlate to growth or success.
Similarly I wonder what the glass door reviews were for the theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. Everyone seemed to have fallen head over heels for her and it turned out to be a huge scam. (CVS and Safeway were mislead about their blood testing capabilities despite hundreds of hours of due dilligence).
All in all to say I don’t really know what to do with all of this new information coming out. I think I’ll wait for the next earnings report for now.
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