My goodness, pledge / SSL loans must be the best score bang for the buck going

[bourgogne]

no mortgage anymore and my little dcu car refi ended and my scores all took a ~40 point hit.  waited a few weeks and it bugged me so I did what everyone talks about, took out a $3100 loan and paid 92% off the same day, set up a 60 month auto pay for $4 and transferred all the money out.  myfico just sent an alert and I am 100% whole, no new account hit, score is where it was a month ago.  I expect ex/tu to be similar when they update.  the entire nfcu exercise took maybe 10 minutes, pretty darn remarkable

[Patient957]

Yes, for your situation, it's a no brainer.  I think 40 points is the biggest I've seen, both down and back up.  Congrats.

[FicoMike0]

Congratulations!

I did 84 months with penfed, 30-40 points. Works fine, lasts a long time.

[Zoostation1]

Nice!  I've given thought repeatedly to doing the SSL trick with NFCU, but now that I'm less than 2 yrs from my BK falling off I don't think it's worth it in my case since I don't plan to open any new cards, nor am I in a position to buy a home yet.

[Mervin]

Pretty neat…what kind of fees/interest did you have?

[BrutalBodyShots]

I'm going to kindly disagree with all of the pro SSL responses in this thread. I think everyone is far too fixated on credit score here and not credit profile. Credit profile is King to score. Okay, so the SSL yielded 40 points. Most data points show 25-30 and this one is 40. But what do those 25-30 or 40 points get you? Nothing. That's the takeaway here. Unless those points land you in a higher score tier for a better rate for a credit product, they aren't offering any real world value. No lender looks at the profile of someone with diversity of credit mix already satisfied (closed "real" loan on reports) that takes on a gimmick "credit builder" loan and says "alright, now THIS person is a better candidate!"

One that possesses a sufficiently strong credit profile built upon revolving lines that already has a closed loan on file is going to boast a profile well capable of obtaining a next "real" loan at the best possible rates when that time comes. A gimmick SSL isn't going to have any real world favorable impact on that lending decision.

[bourgogne]

hi -- now that the loan has hit all 3 bureaus I thought I would leave further details for those that may find it useful in the future.  not sure if I was clear but I used NFCU for a 60-month loan.  apparently penfed offers 2x the length for the same deposit. to be clear, my scores being 810 or 850 does not matter, I did this purely because of vanity and as a testament to the work I put into my credit. back in 2008 things did not look as pretty for me and many others I suspect. 

I also was not thrilled about the result with the 5-year DCU car refi I did, I remember taking a substantial new account hit and I really did not reap much score benefit until later in the loan.  yes, I know my profile is different now than 5 years ago.  let’s just say I wanted to take a different approach and others looked like they had success with the nfcu scenario.

when my DCU loan reported paid my EX went -32, TU -39 and EQ -40.   if I managed my credit I would be 837, 850, 850.  I am certainly not using boost to increase my EX, my vanity ends there.  at least in socal EX is generally lower – lenders like the ability to charge more interest based on crappy scores and that is where EX comes into play.

when the shared loan reported it exactly reversed everything. the interest is 2.25 so the loan cost me about $36 over the term. I made a $3 payment in January just to be cautious and the $4 starts next month.

obviously, I am happy with the result, your results will vary but for a quick score increase if somebody is mid 700s and wants to get into the upper tier I see no downside to this maneuver.  and I firmly disagree with scores not mattering but believe what you want.  I was playing around with my chase phone app the other night and landed on an ink unlimited with a $10K limit, just a card a got for the bonus, I have 2 other unlimited.  instant cli to $28K.  sure, could have been payment pattern, spending pattern, history whatever but I tend to believe that instant approvals are backend score based.  again, believe what you want

[bourgogne]

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@Mervin wrote:

Pretty neat…what kind of fees/interest did you have?

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Re: My goodness, pledge / SSL loans must be the best score bang for the buck going

hi there, it's buried in the post below but its .02/day so a little over $36.  a 60-month car refi @ nfcu is 5.39% and for sure there is more time and paperwork involved and one can be denied.  this is 100%.  with nfcu the note is online, with penfed you must fund for 1 month and they mail the note.  very happy with the result, good luck if you do it

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[BrutalBodyShots]

When you say you did this for vanity, are you saying just because you wanted to see your scores higher? If so and it was just for testing, I get it. Spending $36 for no real world improvement to one's credit though is what needs to be a takeaway here, as I don't think others should be mislead into believing that you have to pay money to achieve a sufficiently strong credit profile.

[bourgogne]

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@BrutalBodyShots wrote:

When you say you did this for vanity, are you saying just because you wanted to see your scores higher? If so and it was just for testing, I get it. Spending $36 for no real world improvement to one's credit though is what needs to be a takeaway here, as I don't think others should be mislead into believing that you have to pay money to achieve a sufficiently strong credit profile.

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I lost an existing loan.  my scores went down.  I like the look of 850 vs 810.  I spent $36 for 5 years to restore them.  if you are saying scores mean nothing then that is news to me,  I totally thought scores are a reflection of history, on time payments, credit mix, etc.  seems to me $36 is a bargain for increasing scores.  that is the reason behind my post.  there you have it.