Too many consumer finance company accounts

[Anonymous]

Hey! I applied for a credit card from DCU recently and was approved, but when I received my score it said “too many consumer finance company accounts” as a key factor that adversely affects my credit score. Strange thing is, I don’t have any. I looked at my report on my FICO and the only thing that comes close is a closed care credit account that I never used. Can anyone help me? How can I get this removed? Equifax is the agency giving that reason. I know it didn’t impact me getting the card, but I don’t want that on my reports because it’s not true. I have pictures of my accounts to post if I can figure out how from my phone.

[Anonymous]

I tried posting pictures from a laptop, but it is not showing up.  I am happy to share my accounts with you if you can help me figure this out.

[FinStar]

Do you presently have any closed installment loans displaying on your actual EQ report? There appears to be something that is driving the CFA code somewhere.

[DaveInAZ]

Any closed account wouldn't trigger that. When I had a personal loan from Prosper a couple years ago I used to get that "too many consumer finance company accounts" on my Fico scores, "too many" even though I just had the one. But as soon as I paid it off & it was closed I no longer got that message.

Just look over your credit report carefully to make sure you weren't a victim of identity theft and someone opened a personal loan in your name. It would be really hard to get it removed because there's really nothing to dispute, those statements of what's helping or hurting your score are just generated on the point score. Like now I get the message "loan balances too high", because my car loan which I've been paying for almost two years still has a balance over 50% of the original loan amount; it's a 5 year loan at 2.99% so I'm not paying it off early just to make Fico happy.

If you were to go through the ordeal of getting a live person at Equifax I doubt if they could tell you what account was triggering that message.

[Anonymous]

A CFA is installment only and even some car loans will code as such.

[HeavenOhio]

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@DaveInAZ wrote:

Any closed account wouldn't trigger that.

I think @Revelate will report a different experience.

[mikesonthemend]

Depending on your state, there is a decent chance an auto loan may report as CFA, even if secured by your car title.

Unable to locate the link, but I follwed a link on rebuilding provided somewhere here on myFico that discussed CFA impact on scores. Included in that hread was information on auto loans being reported as CFAs. If memory serves, and it often doesn't, this was mostly "Nanny" states in the Northeast and Great Lakes area. It was basically related to high interest rate used car loans and loans that exceeded the value of the car.

Some law designed to "protect" consumers and caused severe unintended consequences for consumers.

[Anonymous]

If you have a personal loan on your credit report and it’s not directly from a major bank or CU, these are often CFAs as I found out the hard way from my Best Egg loan I took out to actually *help* my credit which now has dinged me with a CFA. 

If you have any installment loans from services like Affirm, those are often CFAs. 

Some loans from dealers like Toyota and Honda code as CFAs.

Installment accounts from retail stores almost always code as CFAs. 

CFA reason codes stay as long as the account is on your report unless you have a negative reason code that’s affecting your score more bump it off. I didn’t actually get the CFA reason code until after I got my collections and charge off taken off my report and then it hit my auto and mortgage scores — they don’t show up on 8 and 9. DCU uses EQ 5, the “mortgage” score, so it shows up there. 

[Anonymous]

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@HeavenOhio wrote:

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I think @Revelate will report a different experience.

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I was going to post something similar.  Many people report that closed CFAs still result in negative reason statements being present.  It's possible that the vanishing of the reason statement was a coincidence and that it was simply replaced with more important ones... perhaps the CFA language is still "there" but it moved to (say) slot 5 outside of the 4 displayed.

[Revelate]

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@HeavenOhio wrote:

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@DaveInAZ wrote:

Any closed account wouldn't trigger that.

I think @Revelate will report a different experience.

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Yup, I still have that reason code (when I'm pretty enough to see it, to be clear it's more minor than even inquiries which is to say it's not hugely relevant) with a CFA that's been closed since July 2012.  Good lord, I still have 3 more years with that darned thing on EX/EQ, I truly hate the way CFA's are implemented and the fact so many more things these days count as a CFA and then you're stuck with a 10 year penalty.

Weak FICO, weak.