Buffalo Lake Lending Active
Crow Creek Sioux Tribe (Bison Lending) · lending since 2022
Search Buffalo Lake Lending and you will find sites offering it at 5.99–35.99% APR. Those sites are typosquats — near-identical domains publishing fake rates to harvest applications. The real lender operates at 400–795%, carries a Washington regulatory alert, and has a complaint on file from a borrower who repaid $1,011.06 on a $640 loan and was told he still owed over $500.
Buffalo Lake Lending at a glance
Active- Owning tribe
- Crow Creek Sioux Tribe (Bison Lending)
- Lending since
- 2022
- Loan amounts
- $200–$2,000
- APR range
- 400–795%
- Product
- installment
- Website
- buffalolakelending.com
What a Buffalo Lake Lending loan really costs
The complaint that best explains this product involves a $640 loan. The borrower had repaid $1,011.06 — 158% of what he received — and was told the balance still exceeded $500.
That is not an error, and it is not necessarily a scam. It is what an amortisation schedule at several hundred percent APR does: early payments are almost entirely finance charge, so principal barely moves for months. The borrower is not being cheated so much as encountering the arithmetic he agreed to.
Loans run $200–$2,000 over 3–12 months. The genuinely borrower-friendly terms are real — a 9-day grace period before the $15 late fee, and no prepayment penalty on daily-accrual interest. Paying ahead of schedule works here, and it is the only thing that does.
The rate itself is the whole problem. At 400–795%, a schedule that runs to term costs multiples of principal regardless of how reasonable the late-fee policy is.
- BBB rating of A with only 13 complaints — among the cleaner records in this category
- No early-payoff penalty, and interest accrues daily, so paying ahead genuinely saves money
- $15 late fee only after a 9-day grace period, rather than an immediate penalty
- Same-day funding when approved before 2pm CST
- APRs of roughly 400–795%
- Impersonated by typosquat domains advertising fake sub-36% rates under its name
- Named with Bison Lending in a Washington DFI unlicensed-lender alert
- A documented complaint shows $1,011.06 repaid on $640 with $500+ still claimed as owing
- No reporting to the main credit bureaus
Where Buffalo Lake Lending lends
Washington is absent from the exclusion list — hence the state DFI alert naming Buffalo Lake and Bison Lending as unlicensed.
By its own terms, Buffalo Lake Lending does not lend to residents of:
Does Buffalo Lake Lending report to credit bureaus?
No furnishing to Equifax, Experian or TransUnion. Repaying builds no conventional credit.
Applications are screened through alternative bureaus such as Teletrack and Clarity.
A charged-off balance can be placed with a collector who does report to the main bureaus.
The fake-rate domains using this brand’s name
Buffalo Lake Lending has a problem most lenders do not: sites impersonating it. Typosquat domains — small misspellings and hyphenated variants of the real address — publish APR ranges like 5.99–35.99% under the Buffalo Lake name.
No tribal instalment lender prices at 5.99%. Those numbers exist to make an application form look attractive; the application itself is a lead, sold onward or used to originate something priced very differently. Anyone reaching the real lender expecting 35.99% will meet a rate roughly twenty times higher.
The defence is mechanical. Type the domain rather than clicking an ad or search result, check the address character by character, and treat any tribal lender advertising sub-36% APR as fraudulent on that basis alone. The rate claim is the tell.
Who runs Buffalo Lake Lending
The brand operates under Bison Lending, an entity of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Buffalo Lake and Bison Lending are named together in Washington DFI’s consumer alert on unlicensed lenders — one operation, two names, one regulator’s objection.
The BBB record is genuinely better than the category norm: an A rating with 13 complaints, against sister-brand comparisons running into the hundreds elsewhere in tribal lending. That reflects real differences in servicing conduct and, probably, smaller volume.
A clean complaint record does not offset a 795% APR. It means the lender is likely to do what the contract says. The contract is the problem.
What Buffalo Lake Lending costs in dollars
Buffalo Lake Lending's published ceiling is 795% APR. Below is what that rate does to the amounts it actually lends, repaid over 12 monthly payments.
| You borrow | Monthly | Total repaid | Interest |
|---|---|---|---|
| $200 | $133 | $1,594 | $1,394 |
| $1,100 | $730 | $8,765 | $7,665 |
| $2,000 | $1,328 | $15,936 | $13,936 |
At 795%, a $200 balance accrues about $133 in interest every month. Any payment below that figure leaves you owing more than you started with, however long you pay.
Standard amortisation at the published ceiling rate; fees are not included, and your actual rate and term may differ. Run your own numbers in the payoff calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Does Buffalo Lake Lending really offer 5.99% APR?
No. Sites advertising Buffalo Lake at 5.99–35.99% are typosquat domains impersonating the brand to harvest applications. The actual lender discloses APRs in the range of roughly 400–795%. Any tribal instalment lender advertising sub-36% APR should be treated as fraudulent.
Why do I still owe money after repaying more than I borrowed?
At 400–795% APR, early payments are almost entirely finance charge and barely touch principal. One documented complaint records $1,011.06 repaid on a $640 loan with over $500 still outstanding. To reduce the balance you must pay above the scheduled amount — there is no prepayment penalty and interest accrues daily, so extra payments go to principal.
What happens if I pay Buffalo Lake late?
A $15 late fee applies after a 9-day grace period. That is more forgiving than most peers — but a missed payment at this APR costs far more in accrued interest than in fees.
Is Buffalo Lake Lending a tribal loan?
Yes. Buffalo Lake Lending is a tribal lending brand owned by the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in SD. That means it lends under tribal law and claims sovereign immunity from your state's interest-rate cap, rather than holding a state lending licence. It is also why its APR reaches 400–795% — far above the roughly 36% cap most states set for small loans. Whether the loan is enforceable where you live depends on your state.
What does a Buffalo Lake Lending loan cost?
Buffalo Lake Lending lends $200–$2,000 at 400–795% APR. At those rates the total repaid is typically several times the amount borrowed, because interest is front-loaded — check the total of payments, not the monthly figure.
Is a Buffalo Lake Lending loan legal in my state?
It depends entirely on your state. High-cost tribal loans are effectively banned in nine states, where a loan above the rate cap can be void and not legally collectible, and restricted in many more. Buffalo Lake Lending claims tribal sovereign immunity from those caps — an argument courts have accepted in some cases and rejected in others. Check your state before you borrow, and especially before you pay a collector.
How this site works
We are an independent registry — not a lender, not a broker and not a lead generator. This lender did not pay to appear here and cannot pay to change what the review says. We take no money from any lender and sell no applications.
Entries are built from the lender's own published disclosures, tribal corporate and lending-authority records, federal and state court filings, and CFPB, FTC and state regulator actions. Of the 143 brands in the full list of tribal lenders, 41 are confirmed lending, 74 sit on a watchlist pending verification, and 28 have shut down. Where a figure cannot be sourced we leave it blank rather than estimate it — which is why some entries are deliberately incomplete.
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