Is CitiFinancial Personal Loan Application bad for FICO Score?

[Red1Blue]

Is CitiFinancial Personal Loan Application bad for FICO Score?

[Anonymous]

You need to ask them how it will report. If revolving no. If installment maybe. If it is a line of credit it is revolving, personal loan it is installment and you will have to ask if it reports as a consumer finance loan or not. You will probably have to ask a supervisor to get correct info. In fact you may have to go thru several layers of supervisors to get the correct info.

[Anonymous]

I had a loan with Citi Financial and it reported as an installment.  I used it to pay off my credit cards and it did increase my score.  Not by a huge amount but decent.  However, they were chargingme 27% interest which I somehow over looked.  On a 5000 dollar loan I was paying almost a 100 month interest. I just refinanced through my credit union at 15 percent interest and knocked a year off the loan.  I guess my lesson learned was to shop around before you take what seems to be a way out only to find out it put me deeper in debt.

[Anonymous]

As for just the application- the inquiry will ding you.

If you get the loan, I am sure it is a "consumer finance" loan and for some reason those are counted against you. However, I think it is one of the lesser things that hurt your score.

[Anonymous]

I know a couple people who had those in the past and they can be tough to get away from in that once you cash the check you're so indebted to them it seems you'll never get them paid off. The intestest is sooo high it is hardly worth it.

I've gotten numerous offers through the mail and they all go to the shredder based on the experiences of my friends!!! Sometimes I listen

[Anonymous]

I recently got a personal loan through Capital One and it reports as installment loan which ultimately should help my score in the long run.  It's kind of like having a car payment on my file.

[Anonymous]

Citifinancial = CFL = bad for your score

[cobra19]

Agree with creditcrazy.  I also had a loan with them a few years ago, to purchase an investment property.  I give them kudos for getting the paper work done fast, which was helpful to me in securing the property in question. But now, I would do it through NFCU.

CFI rates are high - and my scores, at the time, were all between 785 and 810.