@Anonymous wrote:
@Overmedicated And are there any prepayment penalties? Could they possibly be used similarly to the SSL technique?
I had an installment loan with them last year.
There are no prepayment penalties, but any extra payments don't push out the next month's due date (it can't be used for the SSL technique). I got it myself hoping it would push out the date but it didn't. 
One of the reasons i dont make more than one payment. If i had the $ i would pay down as fast as i could but for now, a real loan
@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
One of the reasons i dont make more than one payment. If i had the $ i would pay down as fast as i could but for now, a real loan
Yeah, I lost 40 points on my EX when I paid mine off.
(Not joking or exaggerating... went from 823 to 783.)
When i had my Penfed, i did pay in advance snd it did move the payment date due. Next time i might just pickup a Navy SSL
@Anonymous wrote:
@UncleB Do you know which scorecard you’re on?
Well, I can tell you that at this point I have no baddies, and my oldest account is 12 years old with an AAoA of just short of four years.
I don't play AZEO games, so I have usually a half-dozen or so accounts reporting balances every month, and my total utilization is around 4%.
When I had the installment loan paid way down (the last three months I had it) my scores were from 815 to 823 (EX). I lost exactly 40 points on my EX FICO 8, and ~35 points on the other two bureaus.
This is TU FICO 8 (it topped out at 817); I got the loan paid way down around April, and it was paid off in July:
@Anonymous wrote:
Decided to go for the pre approval offer. Pre approved for 23K, requested 10k on Friday. Received the money this morning. Was planning on paying it off in like 3 or 4 months but after reading the credit score dip that UncleB experienced I might just drag it a bit longer or wait until I get another pre approval? 40 points is a lot!
Also for people looking to apply with Amex DO NOT sign up for auto pay while applying. Wait until the loan gets set up and they will send you an email with an offer for a $20 statement credit applied to your loan balance to sign up for auto pay!!
Congrats on the loan... my experience was just as easy! 
Thanks for the heads-up on the auto-pay promo... that must be relatively new, since they didn't offer that when I had mine. Great to know they'll pay to sign up! 