First Star Bancorp

Overview

First Star Bancorp is a personal loan company based in Greensboro, NC and (as of 2007-05-07) offering loans in North Carolina, California, Ohio, and Florida.

They do not appear to be related to Firstar Corporation/U.S. Bancorp[W] [1].

Reviews

The Hypertwins

This is a pre-review, as we are still looking into the possibility of obtaining a mortgage through this company and have not yet even applied. I did want to mention a few things that impressed me about their direct-mailing, mainly by comparison with other direct mailings:

• The letter was not alarmist ("OMG YOUR RATES WILL BE INCREASING SOON!!!111")
• The letter seems to have been actually signed by a human (slight smear on the ink, and matching indentations on the back of the paper), one Mitch Hostetler
• The business card enclosed with the letter had the same name on it
• The business card had four different phone numbers on it, including Mr. Hostetler's cellphone and email address (yay!), as well as the company's web site
• The email address actually used the same domain name as the web site (rather than making the common gaffe of having an AOL or HotMail address)
• Mr. Hostetler's name is one of only five on the staff directory, and there is a bio as well
• Overall, I haven't yet seen anything stupid or annoying about the web site, which is quite unusual for a small business site.

The only negative point seems to be the lack of an online payment facility.

I have sent Mr. Hostetler an email with a few questions in it, and we shall see what happens next.

Contact Information

• company web site
• Home office:
  • 6804 West Market St. Suite C / Greensboro, NC 27409
• Ohio office:
  • 4150 Belden Village St. NW Suite 100 / Canton, OH 44718