Consumer Car Buying Advice Blog

The internet has spawned literally hundreds of companies offering to help you finance a car. But which of these online car lenders can really help you, especially if you have bad credit?

Types of online car lenders

There are two basic types of online car lenders – direct lenders and placement services such as Auto Credit Express. The direct lenders are the banks, themselves. The placement services are companies that either deal with a network of banks or represent a nationwide network of car dealers.

At first glance, it would appear that the best choice would be to directly deal with the banks. They are, after all, the places that actually loan the money. If you go to a car dealer, that dealer has to get the money from the bank, so why not go directly to the bank, yourself?

Good credit versus bad credit

Good Credit

Here is where the process gets interesting. If you have good credit, you could spend a few hours on the internet and visit most of the national lenders. In order to find their rates, chances are you will need to submit an application to each one. The problem is, with each application you submit, that bank will need to check your credit. Too many credit inquiries through these online car lenders to the credit bureaus can actually lower your FICO score.

If, on the other hand, you go through a placement service and it is sent to a dealer, that dealer can study your credit bureau, check the rates at all the banks they do business with and pick the one or two with the best rates. This will cut down on the number of credit bureau inquiries, avoiding the possibility of lowering your credit score.

Bad Credit

If you are a customer with bad credit, it’s even more important that you make the right choice for online car lenders. If you go the direct lender route, not only will you have a number of inquiries on your credit report, there is also no guarantee that you will get an approval. In fact, without any knowledge of the subprime lenders that you’re dealing with online, there’s a good chance that you won’t even get approved for a loan. Even worse, if you do get approved for a loan, that loan may carry a higher interest rate than you might otherwise have qualified for at another subprime lender.

What’s the answer?

The obvious choice, especially for customers with bad credit looking for online car lenders, is a placement service. And here is where we come into the picture. For years, Auto Credit Express has been helping people with credit problems get approved for new and used car loans. Our dealers work with the lending companies to get you approved. Your credit report will get checked by the dealer, but once you’re approved, each month you make your car payment you are rebuilding your credit score and reestablishing your financial future.

Unlike many other services, we belong to the Better Business Bureau and our web site is SSL secured, ensuring the privacy of your personal information. Since our inception, we have processed over 1,000,000 online bad credit auto loans and closed over 1 Billion dollars in auto loans.

Visit www.autocreditexpress.com and see what we can do for you.

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