Citifinancial a consumer finance co? Is that a bad hit on my CR?

[Anonymous]

Citifinancial has our 2nd mortgage (due to be paid off in two weeks -yay!)  Are they a consumer finance co?  How can I tell - I understand that consumer finance co's are a bad hit on my CR?

[haulingthescoreup]

Multiple consumer finance loans are a small hit. I don't know that there's a hit for just one. If there is, it's a small one.

Per Barry, it's not so much a hit as less beneficial than a standard loan --which to me sounds like a hit!

It's hard to tell when something is scored as a CFL. Typically, the lender has "financial" as part of its name, but not all of their products are CFL's. I would think that yours, being a secured loan, would not, but there's just no telling --we don't see the codes on the consumer versions of our reports.

You can try calling and asking how they code it. Expect to be met with bafflement, though. This is a tiny, weird little subcategory of credit that most folks in the lending industry know nothing about.

[Anonymous]

Yes - that helps a ton.  So if we're considering a 2nd mortgage, we may be better off checking with our local CU first - we were thinking of checking with Citifinancial since they gave us our first one.  CFL's are a new idea to me - your response was a great help.  And a local CU would report better than a CFL.  Get it.  Glad to learn these things - and later is better than never!

[MattH]

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@utah2009 wrote:

Citifinancial has our 2nd mortgage (due to be paid off in two weeks -yay!)  Are they a consumer finance co?  How can I tell - I understand that consumer finance co's are a bad hit on my CR?

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I have one CitiFinancial TL on my reports, from when the A/C died shortly after my wife and I put most of our cash into the downpayment on our residence, which we paid off pretty quickly.  My scores are in my sig block, and you can see that if I am getting a hit from the CitiFinancial TL then it must be a small hit.