Credit Cards

[Veee]

Congrats!

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mindbot7 wrote:

Good new, as i`m typing this post, i got $2000 CLI from my lovely BOA

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[tomcat]

CIT Financial is not affiliated with Citibank.  I had a small medical loan with a company and CIT Financial bought the loan from the other company.  Nothing on my statements show any affiliation with Citibank.

[jmbfl]

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tomcat wrote:

CIT Financial is not affiliated with Citibank.

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We are talking about CitiFinancial which most certainly is related to CitiCards by virtue of common ownership. They are both part of CitiGroup! Anyone who cares to may inform themselves here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citifinancial

[PurpleHaze]

I get letters from them all time for $6500.  I called and asked what is the minimum FICO score for approval and was told 650. I dont have excellent credit nor do I meet the minimum score. The letters never state the APR.  For example mine reads, "If you are approved for a loan, the actual loan amount and annual percentage rate you qualify for will depend on your ability to meet the pre-established criteria described above, including credit history, income and debts."

[jmbfl]

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PurpleHaze wrote:

I get letters from them all time for $6500.  I called and asked what is the minimum FICO score for approval and was told 650. I dont have excellent credit nor do I meet the minimum score. The letters never state the APR.  For example mine reads, "If you are approved for a loan, the actual loan amount and annual percentage rate you qualify for will depend on your ability to meet the pre-established criteria described above, including credit history, income and debts."

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In other words, YMMV. I have a hard time believing they require a 650. It has to be lower.

I did get one of these type offers from Discover Financial which offered an APR of 7.99%! If I was in the market for installment debt I would have taken that one, but I neither need nor want it. After that I was offered, app'ed for and got a Discover Card with great terms and a large CL. That makes much more sense for my purposes.

As far as CitiFinancial is concerned I hope I can always say NO!

[daWorm]

These are considered "signature loans" and are harmful to your report.  These are scored differently than a collateral loan or credit card as most of these loans are solicited as desperation loans geared towards getting customers money quick without regard for interest.  I had one - it took forever to age off my reports and ScoreWatch listed it as a negative impact. 

While in the 650's - used to get these types of letters monthly.  Now in the 750's - never see them.

Feel free to make your own assumtion based on this.

[haulingthescoreup]

Not "signature loans" so much as consumer finance loans (CFL's.) It's where they come from that's the problem, rather than their being a non-collateralized loan.

DH has this fascination with signature loans from our local CU. There must be 8 of them on his reports, and his scores are in the 800's, with no negative factors. Oh, no wait,

[MeganML84]

Just an FYI--I opted for one of these personal loans from CitiFinancial for about 6500 this past spring. APR was 29.99% (we were in a time crunch and "needed" the money) and was ran as an installment loan over 5 years. If we waited 5 years to pay it off it would have cost us over 14 grand, needless to say we had it paid off in 4 months.

Also, when the rep gave me the terms for the loan she said I would "automatically" get a credit card from Citi due to my "great credit" (it was 650s at the time) but I had to sign for the card. BS! Citi ended up running my credit to do the card so I ended up with 2 inquiries from those people. UGH.

I would stay away from them unless you know you will have the money to repay VERY quickly. Like I said, we had our loan paid off in 4 months, but we still ended up paying over 1K in interest over those 4 months...

[Ulan]

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daWorm wrote:

While in the 650's - used to get these types of letters monthly.  Now in the 750's - never see them.

Feel free to make your own assumtion based on this.

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I'm not sure whether this is always the case. I didn't get any credit card pre-approval offers (except from SW Airlines), but some debt consolidation installment loan offers from Citifinancial. Which brought me to pull my credit report in the first place, and I now know that my EQ score is in the 740's.

[jmbfl]

CitiFinancial are middle feeders. They want people who really want the money (and hence are going to buy off on the terms), but a likely to pay it off. It is just another way to get the unsuspecting customer to pay the most possible. If your scores are too high you most likely will have other alternatives. Almost anybody would be better off shopping at their local CU.