What does "Pre-Selected" mean?

[goodgirl-badcredit]

I received a letter from Citibank staing that i had been preselected for a loan. The letter says "your preselected status for a 4500 personal loan from Citifinancial is confirmed. you are eligible to receive the money as soon as today......."

What does this mean?

Thank you

[Anonymous]

It's an invitation to apply, but not a pre-approval.  You will still have to make an application and be approved.  The preselect usually means they obtained "promtional offering" information from the CRB's, but this is score based and very generic, not specific and means that you "might qualify" but are not guaranteed.

On the other hand, Citi Financial is a personal finance division of Citi, and they traditionally made loans to less than credit perfect borrowers, but at high APR's.  They tended to offer money to those who "need" the loan and were willing to pay the APR for th cash now.  But they may have tightened the qualifications, I don't know.

Anyone out there get a Citi Financial personal loan lately?

[haulingthescoreup]

I never had a Citi Financial loan, but back before I knew better, I got a WF Financial loan to knock off some tuition debt. I paid it off pretty fast, and they were perfectly nice people, but do be aware that most (not all) loan products like this with "Financial" in the lender's name will report as a consumer finance loan, which has the potential to hurt your scores.

Not much, but there it is. I dont' know if one doesn't hurt or what, but I've never gotten a score ding on it. Probably too many other more exciting baddies ahead in line, lol.

[marty56]

When I was subprime (lots of CC debt and in a DMP) I got a pre-approval offer from them.  Funny thing was I had 2 Citibank products in DMP at the time.  I would have been amazed if they would have loaned money to me back than.

A side note is that I dont think a DMP company would take a CFL loan into the program,  I know they wouldn't take an LOC.  Another reason to aviod CFL's.

Message Edited by marty56 on 07-16-2009 02:03 PM

[jaybird201]

Pre-selected is to pre-approved as ovaltine is to hot chocolate. I think that there are some legal issues that come up when you use the word "pre-approved" that don't come up when you use the word "pre-selected", because it really doesn't necessarily mean anything. They probably use whatever information they have on file (including recently pulled credit scores) to determine if you're pre-selected, but you'd still be subject to the same approval process as anyone who applied off the street.

If you were actually able to get the money today, I don't see why they wouldn't actually just go ahead and pre-approved you rather than pre-select you. That being said, I'm not as familiar with Citibank and that letter's phrasing so I'll default to the above posters.

Message Edited by jaybird201 on 07-16-2009 05:20 PM

[Anonymous]

Pre-selected means you're a qualify customer to apply but not guarantee approval. Personal loans are easier approved than creditcards

[creditwherecreditisdue]

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@goodgirl-badcredit wrote:

I received a letter from Citibank staing that i had been preselected for a loan. The letter says "your preselected status for a 4500 personal loan from Citifinancial is confirmed. you are eligible to receive the money as soon as today......."

What does this mean?

Thank you

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1) What APR is mentioned in your letter?

2) This financing can be very quickly arranged if you want or need it. This is a loan and not a line of credit.

If I remember correctly Citi Financial loans report as revolving (even though they aren't) and do not report as consumer finance loans (even though they are). Someone with recent experience with Citi Financial might want to chime in here.

Being pre-selected means that your name was provided to Citi Financial as fulfilling the criteria they asked one of the CRB's to screen their database for. Generally this means you conform to a profile that is likely to: a) have a possible interest in and b) be approved for the product offered. In this case you will find that the terms on the letter you received are very open ended or non-existent. You only will find out what that real deal is if you go down and ask.

[tray]

Hi, I also recieved the same offer via mail yesterday from citifinancial pre-select for $2,500.00. loan.  I found out today transunion is the only credit agency showing citifinancial as a promotional inquiry.  But I wounder really if they would hard pull all three credit reporting agencies.  LOL citifinancial must be hurting for some business.  Although if you apply good luck

7/09 TU- 713

[creditwherecreditisdue]

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@tray wrote:

But I wounder really if they would hard pull all three credit reporting agencies.

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 You can count on one hard inquiry for sure.

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@tray wrote:

LOL citifinancial must be hurting for some business.

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Not in the least. This is their modus operandi.