Getting a Loan to Pay Down CC Balances

[Anonymous]

Hello,

After lurking the forum now for several weeks I finally decided to join.  I have a question and I'm hoping you guys can help. Right now I have a middle score of about 630. I have quite a few baddies that I'm trying to get rid of. ( around 8) but all of them are very old.  After reading all the posts here I'm pretty sure that  my score would go up a lot if I could get my utilization down on my CCs. I was thinking about taking out a personal loan to pay down my CC balances to bring up my scores.  My first question is

1.  Do you think getting a loan to pay down balances is a good idea?
2. What is a good personal loan to get with a score of 630?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Welcome, goingplaces.

To answer your questions:

1.  No.

2.  See answer to question number 1.

Most banks will not loan you money to pay unsecured debt.  It's just too risky for them; they figure if you can't pay your credit cards why should they trust that you will pay them?  Especially without collateral.

Even if you could get a loan, it would only make financial sense to take it if the interest rate on the loan is lower than the lowest interest rate on your credit cards.

Others may have different views.

[cobra19]

IMO, taking a pesonal loan to pay down cc is a bad idea. Taking on added debt is ALWAYS a bad idea, unless we're talking about a mortgage. Do you plan on purchasing a house within the next 8-12 months? If you're not, I would not get a loan. I'd just gradually, and to the best of my ability, pay down my cc's.