topic Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 12:53:23 GMT

So quick question for all you MF'ers! I recently took out a loan with Affirm. The first payment is due November 29th. This will show as a consumer loan? If so I didn't know this prior to the transaction or I would've thought twice!

My question is if I PIF before the due date is it possible that it never reports? Either way I think I'm going to go this route. Worst case scenario lenders will be able to see that it wasn't necessarily desperation as I paid it off prior to due date. It was a really good deal and thats the only reason I took it!

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 14:31:30 GMT

By "consumer loan" do you mean Consumer Finance Account? All loans that people typically discuss here (auto loans, home loans, student loans, personal loans) are loans taken out by consumers, but I am guessing you mean a CFA, which is indeed viewed as a bad thing by FICO and hurts your score.

I do not know that all (or any) loans from Affirm are being tagged by FICO as CFAs. (Though that certainly could be true.) What evidence do we have that this is so?

I seriously doubt that paying the loan to zero tomorrow will stop Affirm from reporting it to the three bureaus.

If the loan is being considered by FICO as a CFA, then it's the FICO scoring impact that you will care about. I am doubtful that a particular lender will penalize you for seeing it in a manual review.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 14:44:09 GMT

Thanks for the feedback Credit Guy! You are correct that is what I meant! I think they only report ot EX or at least thats what I've read on here. Also I beleive I've seen that it's tagged as an CFA but not certain about this!

By the way - didn't see the gains on NFCU SSL that I had hoped. Although it's yet to report to EX.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 14:54:51 GMT

Is the SSL reporting as being paid to under 8%?

Are you certain that you have no other open installment accounts? (Car leases, consumer finance accounts, student loans, mortgages, any loans of any kind)?

Also, what tools are you using to track your credit scores? (In particular the scores that you say didn't go up.)

Finally is it possible that you did get a scoring boost but this was obscurred by a score harming event? To take one example, your credit card balances going up? Or your credit card balances all becoming $0?

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 15:00:37 GMT

Yes - Actually 7.6%. I MIGHT have ganed 8-12 points. I saw more of an increase when the AU popped up.

You think it's an error that NFCU is reporting all that history? It opened in October like it says - maybe just an error on legend.

But this is odd

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 01:14:33 GMT

I have a loan through affirm it does not list as a CFA on Experian for me. They don’t update monthly for me either. It still shows $688 owed when it’s down to 121 owed.

I’m not sure how often they do their reporting, but for me it seems every 3 months or so.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 01:21:04 GMT

Did do anything for you score? Revolving or installment? I’m just going to pay mine off before it reports.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

RonM21 — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 17:06:09 GMT

Worst case is that you pay it off and it reports as closed and paid up to date. I also can't see this being a negative in the eyes of lenders. It will just be one more account in your file, at least for Experian.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 17:55:04 GMT

Hi Brandon. One of the things I notice is that your Navy Fed loan has $0 listed as its original balance. It's possible that FICO 8 views your loan as being maxxed out, since your Balance ($19) is greater than the Original Loan Amount ($0). In the SSL technique you want a loan that has a balance reporting at 8% or less of the original loan amount.

I suggest you start a separate thread where you discuss this and try to get advice from other people who have implemented the Share Secure Loan Technique at Navy (and had great success)... directing them to the $0 Original Loan Amount.

BTW, you may not understand how the SSL technqiue actually works. If you did, you wouldn't be opening more loans within a few weeks of opening the Navy SSL.

PS. Can you give me the source of the screenshot you posted? Is it from a particular credit bureau? If so, which one and when was that report pulled?

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 18:10:22 GMT

Experian is the source. That is odd that the original balance shows $0. Good catch. I never said I was opening another loan now. Lol

I totally understand how it works. I’m opening another SSL before this one closes out in April. Think I clearly explained this above. If not my apologies.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 21:18:44 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Experian is the source. That is odd that the original balance shows $0. Good catch. I never said I was opening another loan now. Lol

I totally understand how it works. I’m opening another SSL before this one closes out in April. Think I clearly explained this above. If not my apologies.

This thread begins with you saying:

I recently took out a loan with Affirm. The first payment is due November 29th.

You then explain that this loan with Affirm was opened so very recently that it has not yet reported.

It looks like you very recently (Oct 12) opened an SSL with Navy, and then some number of days after that opened a loan with Affirm. It does indeed look like you are opening multiple loans around the same time.

The SSL Technique is designed for a person who has no open loans and will not be opening any other loans in the next several months, possibly years. That's why it still looks to me like you didn't fundamentally understand what the technique was and how it works -- or you wouldn't have opened a loan within a few weeks of the SSL.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 21:31:06 GMT

Gotcha. No, the affirm was something I unexpectedly took on for a product that hasn’t hit my report yet so that’s not effecting the impact or lackthereof of the SSL.

Sorry about that.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 21:33:13 GMT

In addition I’m going to PIF on Affirm so it will never even show an open installment.

Re: Affirm Loan - PIF before it reports

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 01:00:53 GMT

I wasn’t checking my reports monthly
At the time I got the affirm loan. So I can’t comment accurately on what it did for my score, if anything.

It reports as an installment loan.