Paying off/down revolving line of credit that reports as an installment loan. affect on score?

[MostlyAwake]

I have a line of credit with my credit union that shows as an installment loan on my reports but is for all intents and purposes, a revolving line of credit with a 3% of total balance due as the minimum each month and a 10% interest rate.

I was just curious how this would affect my score if I paid it down below 9% or paid it off entirely. Since it reports as an installment would I be correct in thinking that it would not affect it much even though it is technically a revolver?

[Anonymous]

If it is indeed viewed by FICO as an installment loan, if it's your only installment loan, paying it off will result in around a 25-30 point drop in your FICO scores.

If it's viewed by FICO as a revolver, if it's your only revolver with a balance and you pay it off, you will lose around 15-25 points from your FICO scores.

If it's NOT your only installment loan OR revolver with a balance, paying it off regardless of how it's viewed (installment loan or revolver) won't have any adverse impact on your scores.

[RobertEG]

Revolving % util is weighted much higher in scoring than % remaining on an installment loan.

If you wish to obtain more scoring credit for it being included in your % util of revolving as opposed to your % remaining of initial loan amount, I would advise contesting their reporting of the debt as being installment.

The definition of revolving and installment credit is well defined, and the correct type should be fairly objective to determine.

Does the account provide you a credit limit, with the discretion to vary the amount of the debt used up to the credit limit?

Both the current balance and minimum monthly payment would then revolve around your discretionary, current use.

[Revelate]

Given you can sort the installment loan portion of your scorecard at 2% APR still if that is your only loan I'd pay it and then simply pull the SSL technique from a handful of lenders if we're just talking FICO scoring.

10% is too high an APR to be maintaining a FICO score if you can swing $500 for a month in a temporary deposit.

[MostlyAwake]

The account has a set limit of $3000 and the minimum payment each month is 3% of whatever the balance is.

Anything I pay down to below the limit is usable credit. There is no card or "number" associated with the account. If I use any of the credit I move funds from that account into my checking account. Hopefully this helps. I'm not sure what to do with it.

It says "installment" on my file.

[Anonymous]

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@MostlyAwake wrote:
The account has a set limit of $3000 and the minimum payment each month is 3% of whatever the balance is.

Anything I pay down to below the limit is usable credit. There is no card or "number" associated with the account. If I use any of the credit I move funds from that account into my checking account. Hopefully this helps. I'm not sure what to do with it.

It says "installment" on my file.

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I've never seen an account, be it a revolver or installment loan that doesn't have an account number associated with it.

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@MostlyAwake wrote:
The account has a set limit of $3000 and the minimum payment each month is 3% of whatever the balance is.

Anything I pay down to below the limit is usable credit. There is no card or "number" associated with the account. If I use any of the credit I move funds from that account into my checking account. Hopefully this helps. I'm not sure what to do with it.

It says "installment" on my file.

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I've never seen an account, be it a revolver or installment loan that doesn't have an account number associated with it.

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Might not be a straight from the bureau pull, those sorts of things can and do get munged in my personal experience by 3rd parties, maybe that's the case here?

If it's not on the bureau dataset, that's more than simply strange heh.