Pre-Approved Loan Cards

[turninganewleaf]

I received a letter from a local Beneficial (member HSBC Group) branch, I suppose, saying I was pre-approved for personal credit line?

How would accepting such an offer affect my credit?  Would this be considered negative?  I have 4 credit cards, some close to credit line, some lower.  It would be nice to pay all of these off at once and have one payment rather than 4.

Fine print says:  Terms include a minimum credit limit of $1500 or higher dep on the min credit limit avail in my state and may include $50 annual fee.  Monthly pymt is based on a percentage of accout balance and mo periodic rate of 1.50 - 2.492% (APR will be 18 - 29.99%) depnding on state of residencey (I'm in AL).

I guess, after typing this, I would need to check the APR on my current cards to determine if this would be wise.  Chances are this is probably a higher APR for the offered credit line.

Also, all my current cc's are in good standing.

[turninganewleaf]

*bump*

[llecs]

Beneficial typicaly reports as a CFL and that can have more of a negative impact to your score than a normal loan would. Even after PIF and the loan is closed, there is still a negative ding. As you pointed out the interest is high too. I get these all the time from Beneficial and CitiFinancial and they all go in the shredder.

[turninganewleaf]

Thanks for the reply.  I didn't think it would be a good move but thought I'd ask anyway.  I have received several of these in the past and have thrown them away but I looked a little more closely at this one.  Off to the shredder!