Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LendUp (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Missvain (talk) 22:46, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

LendUp (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Generic payday loan company. Fails WP:NCORP. scope_creep^Talk 14:42, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 14:57, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 14:57, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finance-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 16:19, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but due only to the broad coverage of multiple legal actions against the company. I just overhauled the article to reflect this. (I accepted this article via AfC in 2013 when it should probably have been declined.) JSFarman (talk) 18:42, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Cited significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. ~Kvng (talk) 12:35, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is a payday lending company. There are about 60 in the UK alone, so it is entirely generic. We will go through the dreadful list of references. scope_creep^Talk 12:42, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If you didn't come across the articles from major publications it's because (as I just discovered) LendUp is incredibly good at burying bad news. Articles from the Wall Street Journal, LA Times and the Christian Science Monitor, among others, should show up on the first page of a Google search yet they didn't appear until I hit page three. The Wikipedia article is on the fifth page of Yahoo!, and ten pages in I have yet to see any negative coverage. JSFarman (talk) 16:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Showing the company in the negative, isn't a particular decent way of proving it is notable, all it is, is proving it is bad at business. That is an entirely different criterion to the one that is needed here. I'll do the references tomorrow for this Sock-generated article. scope_creep^Talk 20:41, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Scope creep, if it is bad at business and that is reported in the Wall Street Journal, LA Times and the Christian Science Monitor, then it is notable. ~Kvng (talk) 23:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is the same language in all three references, which means likely it comes from a Reuters report, and is essentially the same reference. scope_creep^Talk 16:13, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Lets examine the references:

1. Launches today Fails WP:ORGIND. Not independent as it is press-release.
2. The online game of borrowing money Rosenberg is chief technology officer of Lend Up. He took the job after the CEO — his step brother — plied him with a grilled cheese sandwich. Fails WP:ORGIND. Not independent.
3. LendUp uses ‘big data’ to bring better small-dollar loans to people in need Any company that works at web-scale uses big data. Launching today, the San Francisco-based startup.. It is an annoucement. Fails WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:ORGIND as its not independent.
4. Aiming To Disrupt Payday Lending, a16z-Backed LendUp Now Offers Instant Online And Mobile Loans Co-founders Jacob Rosenberg and Sasha Orloff tell us that they’re Not independent. Fails WP:ORGIND.
5. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Sues LendUp Loans Notice of injuction. Not to reference to prove notability. Effectively non-rs.
6. Payday loan alternative LendUp to pay $6.3 million for misleading customers Its an announcement. The company will also pay $1.8 million and $1.06 million to the federal bureau and California department, respectively, to cover penalties and other costs Originally printed in NerdWallet, so it is an affiliate link, making it a press release.
7. Fintech Upstart LendUp Fined by CFPB It is the same exact announcement.
8. Google-backed LendUp fined by regulators over payday lending practices LendUp, based in San Francisco, will pay refunds of about $3.5 million — including $1.6 million to California customers — plus fines and penalties to the Department of Business Oversight and CFPB It is the same exact announcement.
9. Can't access it, but assuming WP:AGF by this sock-generated article likely fails WP:SIRS as not independent. And WP:ORGIND
10. PayPal & LendUp Bridge Financial Inclusion Gap “Through the process, I met Dan Schulman [then] at American Express. He was a big champion of financial inclusion. He had been tooting the horn at AMEX for a long time and had been leading their financial inclusion revamp,” said Orloff. Completly non-independent. Fails WP:SIRS, WP:ORGIND

Here is another reference: [1] which indicates that the CFPB comes from an press release making it a standard announcement. This makes it an announcement failing WP:ORGIND and is not independent. According to this reference, [2] in Dec 2019 there were 23000 payday lending companies in American, make an entry entirely generic. This SOCK-generated article is a brochure for advertising. Its fails WP:ORGIND, WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:SIRS. scope_creep^Talk 16:30, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment The references have changed again. I will examine them tommorrow. scope_creep^Talk 07:11, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The references are really poor, but I think it boils down to the fact whether Wikipedia is reponsible for keeping article that has a human interest aspect. Currently the article doesn't say why it is notable, so its assumed from the comments above that due to the fact that it was fined for a banking scandal. Is it Wikipedias social responsibility to keep an article because of that, particularly when it known, that the average UK bank has a banking scandal on average every 13 months. With 23000 payday lending companies in the US, I don't think it is notable. It is not Wikipedia business to represent this kind of knowledge. scope_creep^Talk 14:19, 2 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Scope creep, no need to overthink this. If reliable sources have reported on it, it is eligible for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Because there is no space constratint, Wikipedia is not curated the same way other collections are. ~Kvng (talk) 15:43, 4 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Kvng: Thanks for that. There are currently 23k payday loan company in the US and core part of the sources we have are not a differentiator to determine notability, in this instance. Payday lenders are some of the most greedy, vindicative, agressive and rip-off finanancial companies that exist. The fact they been found out, when they've ripped off their customesr is nothing new. All of them do that, so the fact they have done it, is not a differentiator, and cannot be used to determine notability. Setting huge interest of 200% or above is relatively common, when compared to some of the ones in the UK, which charge more than 1000%, so that is not a differentiator either. What probably is, is a massive number of customers, with associated coverage, and that is hard to define, because currently the market is so fragmented. So how do you differentiate to determine who is notable and who is not. Firstly it is not based they were greedy and got caught, because on average their backing banks, have a banking scandal every 13 months on average, because they are greedy as well. So They're is not a one fact in the sources that indicate that they are notable, because what happened to them, happens to all, all the time, unless it is somekind of coop, or ethical lending outfit, which in this climate,after the credit crunch in 2008, is few and far between. So there nothing, not one fact, that makes generic lender standout. It is entirely non-notable. scope_creep^Talk 16:16, 4 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Scope creep, there is nothing in our notability guidelines that relates to the type of differentiators you're talking about here. What matters is whether there's reliable reporting in secondary sources. That may make more of these outfits notable than we would ever realistically write articles about. That may mean that we can't have articles on larger outfits that operate quietly and don't get caught by the press. The notability guidelines prevent us from writing articles where there are not enough sources to support them. They are not a curation mechanism beyond that. ~Kvng (talk) 13:19, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When something becomes a common occurance, it is not notable. Here is a Guardian report about a whole bunch of payday lenders in the UK charging exorbitant fees, Wonga 2.0? Meet the new breed of payday lenders. So that is not a differentiator. Here is a news report that address payday lender scandals: Without financial regulation, payday loan scandals continue to hit the poorest the hardest Here is a US Report: U.S. Based Payday Loan Giants May Face Legal Action for Huge Scandal It goes on and on and on and on. Reams of reports, an everyday occurance. Completly normal behaviour and nothing special about it. So you can't say that as they had a scandal, were caught, so they are notable. It happens all the time. It common, so is not notable and that combined terrible refs. Its junk. scope_creep^Talk 14:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Scope creep, both of us have repeated the same points a couple of times now. I think we're done here. ~Kvng (talk) 14:57, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.