Liberty First Lending Review (2026): The 14 Companies On Their Consent Form

by Amine Rahal | Aug 19, 2026 | Debt Relief

Every few months a mailer lands on my desk from a company I have never heard of, telling me I am pre-qualified for a debt consolidation loan. I keep them, because they are a useful window into how this industry actually works. Liberty First Lending sends a lot of them. What I want to show you is not whether the company is a scam, because it is not, but what actually happens when you call the number on that letter.

The short version

The fourteen companies on the consent form

This is the most useful fact in this review, and it is not on the mailer.

Liberty First Lending’s application page discloses the parties your information goes to when you submit it. There are fourteen, and they are named: Americor Funding, Credit9, Monevo, Prosper, BestEgg, Upstart, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Axos Bank, Figure, Even, debt.org, In-Charge, ratespecial.com and Advantage Law.

Read that list again. Prosper, BestEgg, Upstart, Marcus and Axos are lenders, which is what you would expect from a loan application.

But Americor and Credit9 are debt settlement and debt consolidation operations, and Advantage Law is a law firm. Those are different products with very different consequences for your credit.

So when the complaint file fills with people saying they called about a loan and got pitched something else, the explanation is sitting on the company’s own form. This is not a rogue salesperson. It is the design.

One BBB complainant put it more plainly than I could: they called the number on the Liberty First mailer and reported that the phone was answered by a company called Credit Nine. We could not verify common ownership between Liberty First, Americor and Credit9.

All three sit at different Irvine addresses and none lists the others as a related business at BBB. What is verified is the referral relationship, because Liberty First discloses it itself. Our review of Americor covers where that path leads if you end up on it.

What it says it charges

Two things to notice. The company runs two marketing sites publishing different maximum loan amounts, $45,000 on one and $75,000 on the other, while the application form offers $100,000 or more as a selectable option.

That is a transparency problem, not a rounding error.

And that 4.9% origination fee is financed into the loan rather than deducted, which means you pay interest on the fee for the life of the term. On a $30,000 consolidation that is roughly $1,470 rolled into the balance and accruing.

The site also concedes that lower interest rate loans and loan amounts above $35,000 may be brokered, alongside the flat statement that not all loans will be made through Liberty and loans may be brokered based on state.

The reviews are real. So is the complaint file. Both matter.

A 4.15 rating across 248 BBB reviews is not nothing, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Plenty of people had a straightforward experience and said so.

But look at what the complaints are about. They are almost entirely from people who were never customers. That is unusual, and it is the signature of a lead generation operation rather than a lending one.

Theme one: the volume of contact

Since 11/27/24 Liberty First Lending has called and texted over 112 times and has left voicemails in excess causing my voicemail box to fill. (23 January 2025)

For months this place has been texting and calling me from various numbers and area codes spam messages, with my full NAME in all caps. (25 December 2024)

I keep getting unsolicited and unwanted phone calls from this company.

I have repeatedly asked to be removed from their call list. (20 March 2026)

Theme two: the letter promises a loan, the call is something else

Liberty First Lending advertises their business as a debt consolidation loan company and do the classic bait and switch. (24 January 2025)

Their MAILING DOES STATE you are pre-qualified FOR A LOAN. FAKE, FALSE MISLEADING! (three star review, 13 September 2024)

Theme three: where did they get my details

I never have consented for this company to get my information, nor for any other company to run my credit and give it to scam companies like this. (25 November 2024)

About those Google reviews

Worth knowing where the positive volume comes from. Liberty First’s Google review base was built through Birdeye, a paid review solicitation platform, which publishes the account as a marketing case study: zero Google reviews before adopting the platform, 272 at five stars afterwards.

Solicited reviews are legal and extremely common. But a five star average generated by a vendor whose entire job is generating five star averages is not the same evidence as an organic rating, and it should not be weighed the same way.

This is why I lean on complaint counts and regulator records rather than star averages, and why the older third party articles quoting a B plus BBB grade and 3.1 stars are simply out of date. The live figure is A plus and 4.15.

Pros and cons

What that mailer actually means

Here is the thing I most want you to take away, and it applies to every letter of this kind, not just this one.

Pre-qualified is a marketing term with no legal weight. It typically means a list broker ran a soft screen against credit bureau data and your profile matched.

It is not an offer, no underwriter has looked at your file, and the rate on the letter is the best case rate for the strongest applicant, not a rate you have been given. The headline 5.99% here is the floor of a range that tops out at 29.99%.

The second thing is that responding costs you something even if you walk away. Your details enter a distribution network. The complaint file for this company is the clearest possible illustration: the loudest and most repeated grievance is not about loan terms, it is about the phone not stopping afterwards.

If you want to stop this class of mail at source, you can opt out of pre-screened credit offers for five years or permanently at OptOutPrescreen.com, the official site run by the consumer credit reporting industry.

The Federal Trade Commission explains how prescreening works in its guide to prescreened offers. That single step will cut the volume more than any amount of asking to be removed from individual lists.

Who this suits, and what I would do instead

Liberty First may genuinely help if you have good credit, want to compare several lenders quickly, and are relaxed about being contacted. Its partner network includes real lenders and a broker can save you filling in five applications.

But you can reach the same lenders directly. Prosper, Upstart, BestEgg, Marcus and Axos all take applications on their own sites, and going direct means one company holds your details rather than fourteen.

If the honest situation is that a consolidation loan will not solve it, because the balances are too large relative to income or your credit will not carry a decent rate, then the loan route is a detour. Our account of clearing over 100,000 dollars in card debt walks through what actually worked, and our CreditAssociates review covers a settlement provider with a longer track record than anything on this page.

If the problem is interest rather than principal, a nonprofit debt management plan is almost always cheaper than a consolidation loan carrying a 4.9% origination fee. Money Management International is the nonprofit agency we have reviewed most closely. And if you are being sued or garnished, that is a lawyer question rather than a loan question, which our guide to debt consolidation attorneys covers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Better Business Bureau profile, ratings and complaint file
• CFPB Consumer Complaint Database
• Federal Trade Commission on prescreened credit offers

Ratings, complaint counts and published rates were checked on 19 August 2026 and change over time. Confirm current figures before acting on them.

Optima Tax Relief Review (2026): Fees, 786 Complaints and Is It Worth It?

by Amine Rahal | Aug 14, 2026 | Debt Relief

Optima Tax Relief is the most heavily advertised tax resolution firm in America, and it is the one readers ask me about more than any other. Founded in 2011 and based at 6 Hutton Centre Drive in Santa Ana, California, it represents people who owe the IRS: installment agreements, Offers in Compromise, penalty abatement, wage garnishment and levy releases, unfiled returns and audit defense.

It is BBB accredited with an A+ rating and holds close to 13,000 public reviews averaging 4.30 on a volume-weighted basis. It also carries 786 BBB complaints in three years, one of the highest counts in the category. Both of those are real, and the honest version of this review is about what explains the gap.

Optima Tax Relief at a glance

Is Optima Tax Relief legit?

Yes. Optima Tax Relief is a real, long-established firm with a physical office, BBB accreditation, an A+ rating and nearly fifteen years of trading history. The question worth asking is not whether it exists but whether the outcome justifies the fee, and the public record is genuinely split on that.

The complaint number you should actually weigh

786 BBB complaints in three years, with 219 closed in the last twelve months. That is the highest three-year count of any firm I have examined in this category, and it is roughly 30 percent above the next closest. Volume alone does not condemn a company, because Optima advertises harder and serves more clients than almost anyone else, so a bigger denominator produces a bigger numerator. But it is a large number by any reading and you should not skip past it.

Reading through them, the pattern that recurs is not fraud. It is expectation. The most common story is a client who paid several thousand dollars and received an installment agreement, which is a legitimate resolution but also one the IRS grants routinely and which many people could have arranged themselves online for a setup fee of well under 200 dollars. The complaint is rarely “they did nothing”. It is “they did something I did not need to pay for”.

There is also an ongoing class action alleging misconduct, negligence and consumer law violations, which Optima denies. I have not seen a judgment and I am not going to characterise unproven allegations as fact. If it matters to your decision, look up the current docket status yourself before you sign anything.

What Optima Tax Relief costs

Optima uses the standard two-phase model, and its entry price is meaningfully lower than most competitors:

• Investigation phase: 295 to 495 dollars. Optima pulls your IRS transcripts, establishes exactly what you owe and identifies which programs you qualify for. This is the cheapest phase-one fee among the large firms.
• Resolution phase: from roughly 1,500 dollars, rising substantially with complexity. Multi-year, multi-entity or payroll tax cases run far higher.
• 15-day money-back guarantee, which covers the investigation fee only. It does not cover the resolution fee and it does not survive past that window.
• Minimum tax debt of 10,000 dollars.

The low investigation fee is a real advantage and also the thing to watch. It is priced to be an easy yes. Treat the investigation as a paid diagnostic, and when the resolution quote arrives, evaluate it as a completely fresh decision rather than as a continuation of one you already made.

The Offer in Compromise reality check

Every tax relief advert is ultimately selling the Offer in Compromise, the programme that settles your debt for less than you owe. The IRS publishes the actual numbers. In fiscal year 2025 taxpayers submitted 38,797 offers and the IRS accepted 5,464, worth 98.1 million dollars. That is an acceptance rate of roughly 14 percent.

So an OIC is real, but it is not the default outcome, and qualification turns on your income, allowable expenses and asset equity rather than on how much you need help. The IRS Offer in Compromise page sets out the tests and hosts a free pre-qualifier tool. Run it before you pay anyone, and treat any promise made on a first sales call, before your transcripts have been pulled, as a guess.

Also worth knowing: filing an OIC costs a 205 dollar IRS application fee plus a non-refundable initial payment, and it pauses the clock on the collection statute while under review. A rejected offer can leave you worse off than a straightforward payment plan.

Optima vs Tax Relief Advocates

These two dominate the category and readers compare them constantly. Here is where they actually differ.

Optima is cheaper to start with and has the longer track record. Tax Relief Advocates scores better on reviews and takes smaller cases. Neither gap is large enough to decide on its own. Get a written quote from both on identical facts and compare total cost and the exact refund cutoff. For a smaller boutique option, our Five Star Tax Resolution review covers that end of the market.

Pros and cons

Free options to rule out first

I say this in every one of these reviews because it is where most of the regret comes from. Before paying a private firm, spend an hour on the following:

• IRS Online Payment Agreement. Under 50,000 dollars you can usually set this up yourself at irs.gov in about ten minutes for a modest setup fee. This is the single most important item on the list, because it is exactly what a large share of the complaints describe paying thousands to obtain.
• First-time penalty abatement. One phone call can remove penalties if you have a clean three-year compliance history.
• The Taxpayer Advocate Service. Free help from an independent office inside the IRS when you face genuine hardship or your case has stalled.
• Low Income Taxpayer Clinics. Free or near-free representation, including in Tax Court, if your income qualifies. The LITC directory lists them state by state.

Who should hire Optima, and who should not

Worth it if: you owe well above the 10,000 dollar minimum, you have multiple unfiled years, you are facing a garnishment or levy, your case involves a business, payroll taxes or a spouse, or you have tried the IRS yourself and hit a wall. Complexity is what you are paying for and Optima has the staff to handle it.

Also worth it if you simply will not deal with the IRS yourself. That is a legitimate reason. Some people would rather pay several thousand dollars than spend a year on hold, and there is no shame in valuing your own peace of mind.

Not worth it if: you owe between 10,000 and roughly 25,000 dollars, you have filed all your returns and you are not being levied. That profile almost always ends in an installment agreement, and you can obtain one online in ten minutes. After twenty years of reading these stories, this is the most common expensive mistake in the entire industry.

And if your real problem is credit card debt rather than tax debt, a tax firm cannot help at all. Our ranking of debt relief companies covers that, and if bankruptcy has crossed your mind, read whether bankruptcy clears tax debt, because some older tax debt genuinely is dischargeable.

What to ask before you pay the resolution fee

1. What is the total resolution cost as a single number? Not a range, not “it depends”.
2. Which specific resolution are you pursuing and why that one?
3. Could I obtain this same outcome myself through the IRS? Ask it plainly and listen to the answer.
4. Who is my case manager and how do I reach them directly?
5. How often will I receive updates? Silence during long cases drives most complaints.
6. Is back return preparation included or billed separately?
7. Which credentialed professional signs my Form 2848? Get the name and credential.

For heavier situations, our guide to choosing a tax debt lawyer or attorney explains when an attorney’s hourly rate beats a flat-fee firm, which is usually where criminal exposure or a large business liability is in play.

Final thoughts

Optima Tax Relief is a legitimate, experienced firm that does competent work on complicated cases. It is also the most complained-about firm in its category, and the complaints cluster around one specific failure: people paying premium prices for an outcome the IRS would have given them cheaply.

That makes the decision unusually clear. The value of Optima is proportional to the complexity of your case. Complicated, multi-year, business-involved, actively-being-collected: worth it. Straightforward balance, returns filed, nobody garnishing you: almost certainly not.

Use the 295 dollar investigation as what it is, a cheap diagnostic. Then, when the resolution quote comes back, ask the one question that matters, which is whether you could get the same result yourself. If the honest answer is yes, take the 15-day refund and go do it.

Frequently asked questions about Optima Tax Relief