I opened my $550 self lender account last month. Upon opening, I was told that I could only pay one month in advance. This is a real detriment to the traditional SSL, where you could pay all but under 9% of the loan off immediately and maximize FICO score benefit for the full term of the loan. I was expecting that when the loan reported, it would show 85-90% of the loan outstanding.
However, when I made my first payment, I attempted to pay the equivalent of 3 months of payments ($144) and it was accepted. The payment is showing on my account.
I checked with a CSR via chat and confirmed that you can pay as much as you like, BUT: you still must make a payment every month until the completion of the loan. That means I shortened the length of the loan by two months.
But for you guys who are teeing up a high FICO score you could pay off all but a couple months worth of the loan to get the ratio down to a good level. The loan would just die shortly thereafter.
I like self lender for the ease of application, no money up front, and no HP. Why on earth they don't let you pay off a majority of the loan in month one is beyond me. It's no skin off their nose, in fact it's financially beneficial to them. That, (and longer terms), and they'd probably get the full myfico hug of death!
However, when I made my first payment, I attempted to pay the equivalent of 3 months of payments ($144) and it was accepted. The payment is showing on my account.
I checked with a CSR via chat and confirmed that you can pay as much as you like, BUT: you still must make a payment every month until the completion of the loan. That means I shortened the length of the loan by two months.
But for you guys who are teeing up a high FICO score you could pay off all but a couple months worth of the loan to get the ratio down to a good level. The loan would just die shortly thereafter.
I like self lender for the ease of application, no money up front, and no HP. Why on earth they don't let you pay off a majority of the loan in month one is beyond me. It's no skin off their nose, in fact it's financially beneficial to them. That, (and longer terms), and they'd probably get the full myfico hug of death!
Right.
I wish @james_at_selflender would explain the philosophy behind this. Every CSR I've talked to over there just explains it away by saying, "the purpose of the loan is for you to show you can responsibly make monthly payments, not that you have $500 in the bank."
What the holy water do they care?
I wish @james_at_selflender would explain the philosophy behind this. Every CSR I've talked to over there just explains it away by saying, "the purpose of the loan is for you to show you can responsibly make monthly payments, not that you have $500 in the bank."
What the holy water do they care?
You're saying he saw big score increases from the closed loans?
Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.
Unfortunately, in the short term, we're not going to be able to change the way overpayments (aka payments made that are greater than the amount due) are applied to the loan schedule. The short explanation is: we built the entire software backend that powers the credit builder account and making changes to how payments are applied to interest/principal take a lot of time (blog post: https://www.selflender.com/blog/why-fintech-innovation-is-broken-at-its-core.html). Right now, we've got all hands on deck focused on our mobile app which launches in March 2018.
So, here's what we're going to do instead:
If you try to make a payment that is more than what is currently due, then we're going to explain in plain English, that the overpayment will not be applied to the next X months payment schedule, and instead will be applied at the end. Below are screenshots of the customer experience and of the ticket that I filed this morning based upon everyone's comments.
HOWEVER...we will be launching a savings account this year that will you to transfer in money that can THEN be used as a "payment method" for your credit builder account. For example, on day 1, you could transfer $200 into your savings account and then have your credit builder account payments pull from your self lender savings account for the next couple of months.
So, it's not a perfect solution. IMHO the pefect solution would be one where we prompt the customer: do you want this applied to the next months schedule or applied to the end? Nonetheless, I hope everyone understands that we care and we want to make the customer experience great. If you have any other feedback, you're welcome to send me an email directly at [email protected] or to our leadership team at [email protected].
@Anonymouswrote:Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention...
Thanks for the quick and detailed reply. I appreciate the fact that you are listening so closely to your customers. I've been very satisfied with the loan so far and am happy to recommend you guys to anyone who asks. I'll be interested to see how the loan reports when it starts to show up, (specifically in regards to the amount of original loan outstanding) now that I've overpaid by a couple months.
The paired savings account option will be a very good one, IMO. It might enable you guys to extend the terms of your loans out further than the 12/24 month options, which would really get the myfico folks excited.
Good luck with everything!