Low Max Borrow & Bi-weekly Fees Are No Good

Is Credit Genie legit?

Based mainly on a high volume of customer complaints, Credit Genie doesn’t seem legit. Even though many people have received advances from it, nearly as many report never getting another one — yet they continue to get charged $4.99 on a bi-weekly basis. If you want a legit cash advance service, you may want to compare the best cash advance apps instead.

Where Credit Genie falls short

To begin with, the highest loan amount Credit Genie offers is $150. This amount is far lower than almost every competitor, some of which provide advances up to $500 or more with basically the same requirements to qualify.

It also charges a “bank connection fee” of $4.99 — paid bi-weekly, for a total of $9.98 a month. Most other apps with subscription fees only charge once a month. If you want to avoid those bi-weekly (or even monthly) fees, check out these free apps that only charge for instant transfers.

On top of that, Credit Genie doesn’t disclose fees for expedited transfers. Some customers report transfer fees up to 14.99 or even higher.

What makes Credit Genie stand out?

There’s nothing we could find that makes Credit Genie stand out favorably from other cash advance apps. As mentioned previously, advance amounts are low, fees are high and it has some very concerning customer complaints.

Still, like similar apps, it doesn’t charge interest or late fees and is generally less expensive than payday or installment loans. It also offers money management tools that can help you see where your money is going and learn how to budget your funds.

However, you may want to consider other apps like Credit Genie that have lower rates, higher advance amounts or other useful features.

Credit Genie details

Credit Genie contact info

Credit Genie has very limited forms of contact. It doesn’t have a phone number or email address listed on its website. The only email we found was listed on its Facebook page, and it appears you can only send a help request or use its chatbot.

How to qualify for Credit Genie

These are the requirements to qualify for Credit Genie.

• At least 18 and a US citizen or permanent resident
• Linked bank account
• Agree to have only one Credit Genie account

The company doesn’t list any minimum income or deposit requirements, but presumably it has them.

Other features

In addition to its Cash Boost cash advances, Credit Genie also offers Money Manager, which can help customers with the following:

• Track spending
• Create a budget
• Real-time spending insights
• Predict cash flow
• Low balance alerts

Credit Genie reviews and complaints

Despite high star ratings on the app stores, Credit Genie has a large volume of negative reviews on all the sites we checked. One of the most common grievances is that, while people were able to get an advance and pay it back, they were never eligible to get another. But, they were still charged the $4.99 bi-weekly bank connection fee.

Other complaints include high fees, unauthorized changes being taken from their accounts and difficulty reaching or getting problems resolved with customer service.

Positive reviews say it’s an easy-to-use app, advances were easy to get and fund transfers were quick. But even some good reviews say that fees for fast transfers are steep, it can take up to a week for repayments to post, and you can’t get another advance until that goes through.

Compare Credit Genie to other apps