Plain Green

Complaints & Reviews on USAComplaints

USAComplaints currently maintains 13 historical complaints about Plain Green, published between 2011 and 2013. No approved complaints have been published on this site during the last three years. For a current reputation snapshot, see the independent sources below.

• I took out a loan for 700 with themPublished Jan 3, 2013 · Historical consumer allegation
• Falsify my terms, deleting my history, & charging me 5mths more to my account, my terms was for 9mths at 240.57 starting march2 ending nov now they say 14mths ending april for $1200Published Dec 6, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Outrageous interest ratesPublished Oct 29, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Consumer ReportPublished Aug 1, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Mutual Money aka Montel Williams deceptive lending processPublished Jul 18, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Consumer ReportPublished Jul 11, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Consumer ReportPublished Jun 12, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Over charging interestPublished May 1, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Unauthorize withdrawl and overdraf feesPublished Apr 11, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Lied to me and take pmts 2x a month instead of once a month, they charge fees much higher than wha we discussed and constantly hit my bank account when I have called them and asked hem not to and itPublished Apr 10, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• It is charging me excessive penalties, why above what I agreed too. I originally received a 500.00 loan and now owe over 700.00. Tried to resolve but they refuse too and just keep upping my loans. ShoPublished Mar 22, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Private informationPublished Aug 7, 2011 · Historical consumer allegation
• Plain green loans loan sharkingPublished Jun 29, 2011 · Historical consumer allegation

Independent Sources

Shown for context — not merged with USAComplaints' own numbers.

Contacts & Login

• Official website: https://www.plaingreenloans.com/
• Customer support: 866-420-7157 10 complaints mention this number
• Privacy / opt-out requests: [email protected]
• My Account login: https://www.plaingreenloans.com/account/login

Locations

Have a Plain Green loan or a debt-collection call about one? What to check

Plain Green, LLC (Plain Green Loans) describes itself as "a tribal lending entity wholly owned by the Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, Montana, a sovereign nation located within the United States of America." Its own FAQ states plainly: "Loans from Plain Green are governed by the laws of the Chippewa Cree Tribe, not the law of your resident state. The laws of your resident state may have interest rate limits and other consumer protection provisions that are more favorable. If you wish to have your resident state law apply, you should consider taking a loan from a licensed lender in your state." That is the company's own position on which law applies to your loan — not a conclusion of this page.

• Find your Loan Agreement and read the APR, fee schedule and repayment term before assuming a balance is wrong. Plain Green's FAQ says a first loan runs $200 to $1,000, repaid over 6 to 24 months, with "no penalty or additional fees for paying your loan back early."
• Call (866) 420-7157 (Plain Green's customer support line, listed on its own FAQ page and on its BBB profile) to ask about your payoff amount, a payment plan, or a dispute over fees.
• Ask in writing for an itemized payment history and payoff quote before agreeing to a settlement figure — BBB complaints described disputes over balances growing above the amount borrowed despite payments.
• If you don't recognize the loan at all, several BBB complaints describe loans the complainants said they never took out; consider a credit freeze, an identity-theft report, and asking Plain Green in writing to investigate and correct any credit-bureau reporting.
• If a caller claims to be suing you or threatens arrest over a Plain Green debt, verify independently: contact Plain Green directly at the number above and check court records yourself rather than relying on the caller's claims.
• Keep records of your loan agreement, payment history, and any calls or letters with Plain Green or a collector acting for it.
• For privacy or sharing opt-out requests, Plain Green's privacy notice lists [email protected]; the notice says only certain affiliate creditworthiness sharing and marketing can be limited.
• If a dispute isn't resolved, you can file with your state attorney general, or with the CFPB at consumerfinance.gov/complaint, which accepts complaints about personal loans "like installment, advance, and title loans"; the fact that Plain Green did not appear in the public complaint database's company lookup on September 28, 2026 does not stop you from filing.
• To stop automatic withdrawals, the CFPB says to tell the company in writing that you revoke its authorization and to notify your bank or credit union (which may also suggest a stop-payment order); after that, further debits by the company would be errors you can ask your bank to refund. Stopping payments does not by itself cancel the loan balance.
• Minnesota borrowers: under the September 2026 settlement announced by the Minnesota Attorney General, Plain Green may collect only original principal on existing Minnesota loans, with interest cancelled and past payments credited toward principal; contact the AG's office if a Plain Green account does not reflect that.
• Loans from before June 1, 2016: the Gibbs class settlement required Plain Green to cancel outstanding loans it originated before that date and still owned.
• Tribal regulator: Plain Green's regulatory-oversight page names the Chippewa Cree Tribe's Tribal Consumer Protection Bureau and lists [email protected]. You can also complain to the CFPB and your state attorney general.

Regulator actions: CFPB v. Think Finance consent order and the 2026 Minnesota settlement

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Think Finance, LLC and several of its affiliates (Think Finance SPV, Financial U, TC Loan Service, Tailwind Marketing, TC Administrative Services and TC Decision Sciences — collectively "the Think Entities") in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana on November 15, 2017 (No. 4:17-cv-00127). Plain Green, LLC was not a defendant in this case — the Think Entities were Plain Green's technology and marketing services provider, not the tribal lender itself.

The parties resolved the case with a Stipulated Final Consent Order signed by the court on February 6, 2020. Its factual finding states: "From 2011 through at least 2018, consumers in the Subject States obtained credit extended in the name of Great Plains Lending, LLC, MobiLoans, LLC, or Plain Green, LLC. For those loans where repayments exceeded the principal amount borrowed, consumers collectively paid at least $325,000,000 over the principal amounts borrowed." That figure covers all three tribal lenders combined, not Plain Green alone, and the order does not break it out by lender. The order's 17 "Subject States" are Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and South Dakota.

The order permanently enjoins the Think Entities (and any successor "Reorganized Debtors") from providing lending, servicing or collection support to a "Subject Lender" — defined to include a lender that charges above a Subject State's usury limit or lends there without a required license — for consumers who identify a residential address in one of those states, going forward. The Think Entities "neither admit nor deny any allegations in the Complaint," and agreed to pay a civil money penalty of "$7 ($1 for each Defendant), jointly and severally" — imposed, per the order, "pursuant to the agreement of the parties as part of the Plan" (the Think Entities' Chapter 11 plan) and taking into account the statutory penalty factors.

CFPB payments to harmed consumers. The CFPB's Think Finance payments page reports a distribution, ongoing since May 14, 2024, totaling $384,009,580.74 to 191,672 consumers across the Think Finance-managed lenders (Mobiloans, Great Plains Lending and Plain Green). Questions go to the CFPB's administrator: 1-888-557-1865, [email protected], or CFPB v. Think Finance, LLC, P.O. Box 5290, Portland, OR 97208-5290. This is relief from the broader Think Finance case, not a separate payment by Plain Green.

New York DFS, August 2013. On August 5, 2013, New York's Department of Financial Services sent cease-and-desist letters to 35 online lenders, including Plain Green, LLC, demanding they stop offering what DFS called illegal payday loans to New York consumers; DFS said payday lending is illegal in New York under civil and criminal usury laws and had told debt collectors that such loans are "void and unenforceable" in New York. That was a demand letter, not a court judgment, and it concerned New York only.

Minnesota Attorney General, September 2026. On September 23, 2026, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a court-approved settlement ending his federal lawsuit against Plain Green, LLC, which the AG said charged Minnesota consumers interest rates "approaching 700 percent." Under the settlement, the AG said, Plain Green "may collect only the original principal on existing loans, with all interest cancelled and past payments credited toward principal," and is "permanently barred from issuing illegal loans to Minnesotans going forward." The AG's office asserted that Minnesota's consumer-lending laws govern conduct directed at Minnesota residents, while Plain Green had told consumers that Minnesota law did not apply because it is tribally owned.

Company background

Per Plain Green's own "About Us" page: "Plain Green is the trusted online resource that helps people meet their emergency and cash-flow needs quickly and easily with simple online installment loans. We're a tribally chartered corporation that has funded more than $1 billion in loans, helping more than 1 million customers since 2011" — the company's own figures, not independently verified here. The same page states Plain Green is "a subsidiary of Atoske Holding Company."

Plain Green describes its tribal owner as follows: "Plain Green is a tribal lending entity, wholly owned by the Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, Montana — a federally recognized sovereign nation located within the United States of America. The tribe was established by Congressional Action September 7, 1916, and is located near Box Elder, Montana where the Chippewa Cree Tribe still resides today. We operate within the Tribe's Reservation, which is also the location of our Corporate Office and our Customer Service Center." The company's BBB profile lists that same Box Elder, Montana address and gives a BBB file-opened date of June 7, 2011 and a business-start date of April 5, 2011 (BBB's underlying data; the rendered profile page displays dates one day earlier due to a timezone display quirk).

Plain Green offers a tiered "VIP Rewards" program for returning borrowers who pay off prior loans: Silver (up to $1,500), Gold (up to $2,000), Platinum (up to $2,500), Titanium (up to $3,500) and Emerald (listed at up to $4,500 on the VIP page; the FAQ says VIPs "can request up to $5,000 at the Emerald Tier"), each requiring a history of paid-off loans, per the company's own VIP Rewards page.

Complaint record: USAComplaints, CFPB, BBB and Trustpilot, reported separately

Several sources track complaints and reviews about Plain Green, and this page reports each separately rather than blending them into one figure:

• USAComplaints: 13 posts on this site name Plain Green (or a close spelling) as the company complained about, all dated between June 2011 and January 2013; none were found from 2014 onward.
• CFPB Consumer Complaint Database: checked via the database's own company-lookup tool on September 28, 2026 — searches for "Plain," "Plaingreen" and "Chippewa" returned no matching company entry for Plain Green. This means Plain Green does not currently appear as a selectable company in that database's index as checked; it does not mean no consumer has ever tried to complain about it there.
• BBB: Plain Green Loans (Box Elder, MT) is not BBB Accredited, carries a BBB Rating of B — BBB's stated "Reasons for rating" is "59 complaint(s) filed against business" — and the profile carries a BBB alert for a "Pattern of Complaints." BBB shows 59 complaints in the last three years (17 closed in the last 12 months); separately, BBB's customer-review score is 1.03 out of 5 from 29 reviews. Complaints read on the profile describe disputes over balances that grew well beyond the amount borrowed despite ongoing payments, loans the complainant says were never authorized, funds misdirected to the wrong bank account, and the company citing tribal sovereignty in response to state-usury-law objections — complainants' own accounts, not independently verified loan-level facts.
• Trustpilot: a claimed profile (since June 2014) showing a TrustScore of 4.6 out of 5 from 14,537 reviews. Trustpilot's own page notes Plain Green "invites their customers to review, whether positive or negative" and has "replied to 81% of negative reviews," typically within 24 hours.

Because each source covers a different population, time window and review-solicitation method, none of these figures is added to or averaged with any other. The gap between Trustpilot's 4.6/5 (on a profile where the company invites reviews) and BBB's 1.03/5 is reported here without drawing a conclusion from it.

Gibbs v. Plain Green: the RICO class action and its settlement

Darlene Gibbs, Stephanie Edwards, Lula Williams, Patrick Inscho and Lawrence Mwethuku filed a putative class action, Gibbs v. Plain Green, LLC, against Plain Green, LLC and Great Plains Lending, LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on July 11, 2017 (No. 3:17-cv-00495), asserting claims under the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) — an allegation, not a court finding of racketeering.

The docket shows the defendants moved to compel arbitration and to dismiss the case; the court's order of July 25, 2018 ruled on those motions (among others), after which Plain Green and Great Plains Lending each filed a notice of interlocutory appeal in August 2018. Those appeals were later voluntarily dismissed (September 2018 and January 2020) as the case moved toward settlement rather than being decided on the merits.

In June 2019 the court consolidated the case, "for settlement purposes only," with two related cases, Price v. MobiLoans, LLC and Gibbs v. Curry. The court granted preliminary approval of a class action settlement on July 17, 2019. At a final approval hearing on December 11, 2019, the docket records: "Settlement Approved. Fees Approved." The court's written Order Granting Final Approval of Class Action Settlement, Certifying Settlement Class and Entering Final Judgment followed on December 13, 2019, and the case was terminated on March 12, 2020. According to the plaintiffs' memorandum supporting final approval (Dkt. 135, filed November 20, 2019), which summarizes the settlement agreement, Plain Green agreed to pay $975,000 and, as of the settlement's effective date, to cancel all outstanding consumer loans it originated before June 1, 2016 that it still owned, and to stop collecting, selling or transferring those loans. The settlement class included all U.S. borrowers to whom Plain Green lent money before June 1, 2016. The settlement resolved the allegations without a trial verdict.

Is Plain Green Legitimate?

Plain Green, LLC is a real, operating lender, wholly owned by the Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, Montana, with a listed office at 93 Mack Rd Ste 600, Box Elder, Montana. It has operated since 2011 and, by its own account, has funded loans to more than a million customers. Plain Green's own position is that its loans are governed by tribal law rather than the law of the borrower's home state; several BBB complainants and a federal RICO class action (Gibbs v. Plain Green, settled with court approval in December 2019) have disputed that position as applied to specific loans and interest charges. Separately, a 2020 CFPB consent order against Think Finance (Plain Green's former technology/services provider, not Plain Green itself) found that consumers across three tribal lenders including Plain Green collectively paid at least $325 million over principal from 2011-2018, and permanently barred further such support to residents of 17 states. This page assigns Plain Green no rating, score or "scam" label of its own; readers can weigh the regulatory record, litigation history, and the BBB/Trustpilot numbers above for themselves.

Court & Public Records

Company Relationships

• Owned by: Atoske Holding Company

Frequently Asked Questions