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Consumer Finance Loans

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debtby60000cuts
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Consumer Finance Loans

Hi,

 

I recently pulled my credit report again and was surprised that for the first time FICO remarked that I had two Consumer Finance Loans and that this was hurting my score.

 

1) I've never seen this designation on my FICO credit score before and I've pulled my report at least once/year for the last six years

 

2) The accounts (at least I think they are the accounts they are talking about) have been paid off for at least 4 years and had 100% on-time payments so I'm not sure why this is still listed as a negative

 

My question is could these loans be the financing I took out from Orkin to pay my termites or would it be something else?  How can I get this designation removed and why is it appearing now?

 

Does anybody have any insight?

 

Thanks

Message 1 of 2
1 REPLY 1
haulingthescoreup
Moderator Emerita

Re: Consumer Finance Loans

Hi, welcome to the forums!

 

The fact that this particular negative has now appeared means that any more serious negatives that you used to have are no longer a factor. It might also mean that your credit history has now gotten old enough that it's a mini-problem, whereas it didn't used to be.

 

The presence of consumer finance loans, especially when you have only two, isn't hurting very much. I'd guess a couple of points, maybe. It's just that you haven't got anything else more problematic, and so now this one has appeared. Negative factors are listed in order of hurt, and when the real problems go away, the silly things show up.

 

A CFL is an installment tradeline. If your Orkin account was an installment (fixed payment every month, and once it was paid off, it was closed), that's probably it.

 

I wouldn't fret. I finally had this come up as a negative factor, for my one Wells Fargo Financial signature loan that I took out many years ago, not knowing that it was considered tacky in scoring land. (Not that I would have cared, had I known.) It actually cheered me up to see it appear, as it meant that any real negatives were gone. Smiley Happy

 

For anyone else reading this, CFL's aren't the end of the world, especially if they make financial sense for you. But be aware that they are looked on with a bit of disfavor in credit scoring land, so if you can avoid one, do so. Again, they are set up as installment loans, not as revolving credit. Many furniture store accounts used to be CFL's. Nowadays, the trend seems to be toward a furniture store CC instead, that can be used again once the original Barcalounger is paid off. These DON'T report as CFL's, so they shouldn't be a problem. The main drawback of CFL's is that they often have wicked-high interest rates. Mine was for three years, but I paid it off in 7 months.

* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007
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