Noddle Credit Score

JKSandy wrote: »

^^ Which companies send out letters to people to say they have been pre-approved? Apart from lenders contacting their existing customers.

The Credit score provided by CRA's is genius, it is a clever marketing tool. Show someone a number, let it go up and down, they get fixated and this equals a returning paying customer.

My daughter got a letter from Aquacard last week offering her £750 on a pre-approved basis. She didn't have a clue who they were.

Why are so many people fixated with believing CRA credit scores are made up numbers? I am no fan of CRA's but I believe their scoring system plays a role in how lenders view you. The CRA's themselves boast on their websites to lenders how sophisticated their systems are and what they can do for them. They even put it in writing on here. I don't think even they would promote these services and state in writing that they do, if they didn't. This is a major source of their income, they don't get rich from us paying £2.

A lot of people believe they are meaningless but so far no one has come up with a scrap of evidence to justify their beliefs.

Ok. I'll bite. People on here with defaults and ccjs reporting "excellent" scores, some of 999. They would never be accepted for anything but sub prime credit (and even that isnt a cert).

I rest my case.

JKSandy wrote: »

Yes that was a scam letter:

http://www.aquacard.co.uk/fraudalert

"We only approve customers for an aqua card if they apply directly with us and do not pass applicants details to any other provider"

Thats very interesting. So who would have sent it to her? I will get her to call Aqua tomorrow and ask them. I will also ask her to check the address on the letter/application form.

JKSandy wrote: »

"they don't get rich from us paying £2"

Right they don't, that why they charge up to £14.99 for a report with a score PER month.

Yes, its a total rip off but I believe they make their real money by selling useful information, including their own unique scoring system which they boast about, to their customers.

The_Boss wrote: »

Ahh I see. It's ok for them to be way out as long as some people are accurately assessed. I've got this great watch that I'd love to sell to you. It doesnt work, but it is right twice a day so it fits your criteria.

I'm arguing because, in your words, this is a discussion board.

There is plenty of evidence from people on here as to why the "scores" are useless and other evidence including the fact that application data such as salary is a key driver in lenders' decisions. Because Experian etc build bespoke scoring matrices for some lenders it does not give their "score" any credibility when so many different matrices are used by different lenders for different products and using data from other sources. What have they modelled the "score" matrix on even? One lender, or a mish mash of several?

You are absolutely right but unfortunately missing my whole point.

I agree with your synopsis here completely and that is why I am trying to get my point across. You keep saying they are meaningless, I say they are not.

They may be wrong and inaccurate but they are certainly not meaningless. I believe more than ever now, having read pages and pages of CRA sites and having listened to someone who worked for a lender, that these scores ARE used by lenders, therefore they are not meaningless.

In some cases they are accurate and in others they aren't. Looking through a number of threads, the biggest issue seems to be when someone has no credit and is given a 999 score.

I believe they are used by lenders carrying out a soft search and until anyone can prove to me otherwise, I will stick with that theory for now. You keep referring to other issues such as income etc and again I completely agree but this is based on a full application and I keep saying that I believe these scores are based on a soft or initial search basis.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with the problem that lenders (in some cases) are looking at information that (again in some cases) is not correct.

I don't know what the % of accuracy is, but I suspect its more accurate than not but the problem lies in that there is sufficient inaccurate information out there and that is a concern.

The reason I am so interested in this, is that I am building a much bigger picture of the way CRA's handle information and how outdated their systems are.