Self Lender?

[Anonymous]

You will regret it. I joined and it dropped my score by 30 points and the day it reported was the day I was buying a car and they denied me the loan because of the drop. Don't do it! I have a clean report, no collections, no lates, 0 utilization, etc. I was almost at the 700 club and bam down to the low 600's. This is not worth it. I almost feel that all the good reviews are made by the people that work at Self Lender and not actual reviews by real people. I am extremely upset about this and now I am stuck having to pay my own money to get it back. I wish I could make this go away. They are not who they say they are. Be cautious and don't do it. Open another unsecured card to boost your credit instead. 

[bass_playr]

I'm sorry, but I could not disagree more.

First off, I am a real person.  I do not now, nor have I ever, worked for Self Lender.  I have seen the scores come up. The problem here is not Self Lender---it's that you tried to use it when its use was not appropriate for your specific situation.  If you knew you were going to get a car loan, you never should have gotten a Self Lender account.  The car loan would perform the same function as a self lender account--namely, giving you an installment loan on your credit.  If your scores were right near 700, why would you need to get a self lender account to start with?  Makes no sense.  I've seen people with scores south of 600 get approved for a car loan.  Self lender is a credit building product for people with credit problems, not a product for people with scores near 700 and no negatives reporting.

Also, your claim makes no sense.  If you were almost at 700 and your score dropped 30 points, you would not be in the low 600's.  

Next, "they are not who they say they are"??  Are you for real?  You used a service that did not suit your personal credit picture, and because it was not going to work in your specific situation, you blame THEM...?  Sorry, no.  There are very few one-size-fits-all answers when it comes to credit.  Fact is, you tried something and it did not do what it would do in a different situation---that's not THEIR fault.  If you have no collections on your report, no lates and low utilization, why on earth would you need a credit product that only serves the purpose of helping those with credit problems?  Again, sorry, no, it's not their fault.  What you did was increase your debt to income ratio, and your utilization.  OF COURSE, in your situation, that will hurt before it helps.  

At the end of the day, if you're near 700 and you drop 30 points, I cannot imagine how you could not find auto financing these days.  If a $500 self lender account was enough to the underwriters that you were denied, then you have other issues with credit or income that also got in the way.  I cannot imagine that a $50 per month obligation was so much that they denied you, unless the numbers were going to be so tight anyways without it.  But the lesson here is that you need to evaluate everything before taking action regarding credit.  You tried to use a credit product that really does not fit where you are on your credit reports in the first place.  Don't blame them for your decision.  It's like trying to use a wrench when you really need a hammer.

[Anonymous]

Well if you are prepared to pay a higher interest rate on a car loan based on your credit be my guest. I will not! I signed up with Self Lender to improve my credit more and for no other reason. I did not expect it to put me under the radar like it did and I will not endorse their product the way you do. I have spoken to all three bureaus today and with myfico and they all state that Self Lender indeed lowered my score and nothing else because I have exceptional payment history.  I have paid on time and in advance with Self Lender. Huge mistake!! HUGE!

[bass_playr]

If you want to be upset, that's obviously your choice.  But you should at least focus that energy in the right place.  

Self lender type accounts do nothing to help someone with no negatives and good credit history.  They are designed solely to help people who DO NOT already have good credit history and/or are trying to overcome negative history.  You chose the wrong product for your wishes.  Please understand that's YOUR doing, it's not self lender's fault.  No product in the credit business is one size fits all.  You did not do your homework before committing to it.  That's on you, respectfully, not on self lender.  

And frankly, for you to come in here blaming self lender for that is dishonest.  

But now, you're starting to make no sense.  You told us that your score was near 700, with great credit showing, no collections and no late pays showing.  But NOW youre telling us that you didn't want to pay a higher interest rate?  Why would someone close to 700 with that credit history showing be stuck with a high interest rate?  With a credit score around 600 I was able to get a used car a couple years back.....at 8% with $1K down.  Not "800 credit score good", but absolutely not a high rate considering it's legal in my state to charge someone 29% interest on a used car!  You keep telling us about how you have "exceptional credit history"....but now you say you did it because you were trying to avoid paying a high interest rate.  That doesn't fit....an exceptional payment history is the exact thing that allows you to get a better rate in the first place.  And then, something else that doesn't fit.  You signed up with SL....then, before it even hit your credit, you already went out to buy a car.  You're telling us that you did SL so that you could improve your score, and thus get a lower interest rate...but you went to buy the car before SL even hit your credit.  And you blame THEM?  How?  Before it hits your credit, you have zero idea what will happen to your score, and without knowing that, you went shopping anyway?  The strainer in my cabinet has fewer holes in it than your claim does....

The problem here was not self lender.  It was your choice of action and the way you went about it.  I found the car loan I mentioned above by shopping around and ended up going with a local credit union.  Quick, easy.....and that's how I found the rate I found.  The Chevy dealer that was selling the car wanted to finance us through their lender at 15.9% and promised me that I would not get approved at anything better....shopping around did for me what you were trying to do.  

Of course it lowered your score--it added to your DTI and your % util changed too.  That's what often happens when  you add a new account--though again, everyone's credit is different.  You cannot come in here blasting self lender--or any other such product--when you clearly do not understand how many variables affect the score you see.  Here's the thing of it---even Self Lender does not tell you, "sign up with us and your score will instantly improve".  You had unrealistic expectations--and again, that's not self lender's fault.  It's yours.  

Next, you paid in advance, further showing you do not understand this.  Paying in advance does not help your score like SL is designed to.  The purpose is to demonstrate that you can timely make installment payments--it's not to demonstrate that you can pay all of it early.  

I hope you understand the difference between SL doing something wrong and the fact that you did not take many things into account before acting.  It's really bad information to blast SL because of unrealistic expectations and not understanding the ins and outs of it all.  SL does what it is designed to do--no more and no less--when properly applied and paid on time.  But like most anything else, if not properly used, you won't get the same results.

[jgdev]

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@Anonymous wrote:

You will regret it. I joined and it dropped my score by 30 points and the day it reported was the day I was buying a car and they denied me the loan because of the drop. Don't do it! I have a clean report, no collections, no lates, 0 utilization, etc. I was almost at the 700 club and bam down to the low 600's. This is not worth it. I almost feel that all the good reviews are made by the people that work at Self Lender and not actual reviews by real people. I am extremely upset about this and now I am stuck having to pay my own money to get it back. I wish I could make this go away. They are not who they say they are. Be cautious and don't do it. Open another unsecured card to boost your credit instead. 

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The only way opening that account could impact your score negatively is if you have a very thin file and opening a new account lowers your average age of accounts by a good portion. It is an installment loan. Period. There is nothing special about a Self Lender account that would make your score drop. I am willing to put money on that if you opened that car loan like you had planned it would've done the exact same thing.

[bass_playr]

It's not so much the issue that the car loan would have done the same to his report.  It's that he used a credit product that was not suited to what he was trying to accomplish.  He wanted a very short term boost to his scores so he could get a better % rate auto loan.  SL is not for that purpose.  

In fact, the smarter alternative IMHO would have been to not do SL, just get the car loan, and then refi as his credit score increased with good payment history.  Tons of lenders will refinance a car loan to a better rate as you qualify.  He just made a wrong choice with regard to what he chose and what he expected out of that choice.  

[busted2]

It’s good to understand the basics of a product, I think it produces less frustration that way.

[LizardLady]

I'm eleven months into my one-year plan with Self Lender. My score is up 90-some points (of course I've done other things to try and increase it during that time). And, next month, I will have a CD paid off that's worth $500 . . . the first chunk of money I've been able to save for a very long time. You know how they say to pay yourself first? I found that Self Lender was a way for me to pretty much be forced to do that. When this agreement ends next month, I intend to to initiate another one and, next year at this time, I'll have that first thousand saved. (I'm doing well enough recently that I may be able to do it alone before then,  but I still like the accountability of knowing I HAVE to put that $48.50 each month toward my Self Lender account, which I then get back at the end of the year.) At this point, just the enforced savings is enough for me and the positive payment history on my credit report is a bonus.

[rbentley]

I got a SL in May hoping that it would boost my scores.  I took out the $25/24 month option.  So far I haven't seen any score increase.  In fact, my scores took a slight dip due to the new account lowering my AAoA and resetting my AoYA to 0.  My scores previously had the negative notation "No recent installment loan on file."  I thought this would help my mix, but now I get the "Loan blance is too high" message." I am likely to have that for the next 18 months.  Since you only really see the boost when under 8.9% I don't expect to see a big score payoff until the last 2 months of the loan.  

I don't have a real complaints though.  I am building up some saving that I wouldn't have had before and I am getting an installment loan on my accounts.  I think I will replace it with a long term SSL from a CU like Navy that will allow me to prepay it down to 8.9% while keeping the longer term.  That seems like a better option for long term score increase.

[Anonymous]

Will your credit score drop once the SL is paid in full and the account closes?