Discover Debt Consolidation Loan Experience

[Anonymous]

Figured I'd share my experience since this forum has helped me so much.

After getting a mailer for someone else from Citi about a personal loan, it got me thinking and then I started researching and thanks to someone on this forum, I decided to see what Discover would offer me for a debt consolidation loan.

We started out 2020 with about $80k in credit card debt and paid almost all of it off over 2020/early 2021, now we're back up to a little over $30k. We've been paying it off regularly, but a few cards that had 0% APR introductory rates were coming to an end and adding up the finance charges was hurting a little bit, so after doing a lot of math, I decided to go ahead and do it.

Discover offered me $35k for 48/months @ 12.99%, which saves us almost $300/month in interest and takes our monthly payment down by about $1000 that I was paying before. The loan payment is $939/month and there is no penalty in repaying it early, which I plan to do.

I applied online and saw the different options. The longer the loan, the higher the finance charges were. It was a soft pull to see rates and then a hard pull when I "actually applied". As soon as I confirmed the credit check, I got an email saying that I needed to call them. When I called, the lady had me give her all of the credit card numbers and how much we owed to each card. I didn't know this beforehand but they cannot pay themselves and of course the biggest card was Discover. You have to hit at least 70% dispersement directly to the creditors or else they will rework it as a personal loan and I knew that I'd get a higher APR which may make doing this worse than the situation we're already in. We luckily came out to 70.2% with all the cards I gave her. She was very nice, helpful, and patient. Definitely had a good experience! I set up the autopay since it's not like I'm going to not pay the loan.

My credit score from different places:

Creditwise 642

FICO Score 8 677

Vantage 3.0 632

Inquiry notification came through TransUnion

Credit usage is 38%

Yearly income is about $210k

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Thanks for the DPs. Could you add Debt To Income ratio as that can be a huge factor in some loans. Thanks.

[Sharpism]

When you have a moment could you also include datapoints of what all information they required from you? ie w2s, paystubs, utility bill, social security card, driver's license/ID, etc

[Anonymous]

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@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:

Thanks for the DPs. Could you add Debt To Income ratio as that can be a huge factor in some loans. Thanks.

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Looks like some places do it by monthly payments/monthly income, which I'm not sure how much that would be because I'd have to go back through and calculate all the monthly minimum payments. Overall debt-to-income ratio is 0.16.

[Anonymous]

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@Sharpism wrote:

When you have a moment could you also include datapoints of what all information they required from you? ie w2s, paystubs, utility bill, social security card, driver's license/ID, etc

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They didn't require any verification info. I filled out the application online which included basic things like name, address, SSN, yearly income...

The only sort of thing they verified is they asked for two codes that were on the back of my Discover card. She said that was part of identity verification.

[ghgirll40]

Congrats on your approval and thank you so much for sharing!

[Anonymous]

Adding some datapoints to this thread:

35K Home Improvement Loan. Instant prequalification approval. Got logged out in the process, so called in to get my 'approval code'. They asked me a bunch of questions, about my recentish house refi (for rate), other personal loan, and NFCU card opened 6 months ago with zero balance. She said that based on how fast the preapproval came back, it should go through easily, when I mentioned I had wanted to look at lesser amounts/better interest rates. So I went ahead at 35K.

They double pulled TU (738) and EQ (757). Asked for 3 months bank statements, which I submitted in seconds through their portal. Bank statements show 6k in/out per month. Income 62K.

3 days later, declined. Only reason was "Inability to repay". DTI was 47% before the loan, (not really, because my work pays my car payment at $469/month, but it looks like that) So I guess I get it. But not even a counter, or lower amount, or anything. Fail. Ahh well, moving along.

Congrats to OP on your successful loan though!

Best,

TGG