Clearscore taken a nosedive

TheBruce · 14 March 2017 at 12:47PM

I was stupid and got myself in a bad position last year.
Ive been working my way out and up since then.

I have been tracking things on Clearscore and my numbers have been going steadily up from 368 in April '16 to 418 in Jan '17. Slow but up is up!

I took out a mobile contract for my son who's not 18 yet - my score in Feb dipped to 381. I was a bit annoyed but understood it was cos of the credit search for the phone (which i passed).

However I just got the March report and im down at 289! This is with the new phone account on there.

Am I stupid to not have realised that it would have made such a big difference? Through ClearScore I had been pre-approved for a balance transfer card which I took in June '16 - that made my score go up not down!

I'm wanting to talk to the bank in a few months about a change to the mortgage. How long will it take for my score to go up again? Or should i not be worried - the "scam" of a "score"

All bills / accounts are paid and have a history of 14+ months payments on time.

The "positive" notes on my account:
Positive 9

You have no Court or Insolvency data
You have been on the Electoral Roll at your current address for a long time
You have held at least one of your accounts for several years
You have very few / no accounts in arrears
Your largest credit card limit is relatively high
You have stayed within your credit card limit in the past year
Your total credit card % utilisation is relatively low
Your current Telecoms balance is relatively low
Your total mail order % utilisation is relatively low **(its zero)

The negative:
You have had at least one account in Default or Repossession
You have made more than a few applications for credit in the past year

The default is bad position I mentioned - but thats been on there since i started with Clearscore.

Thanks for reading this far!

[Deleted User] · 14 March 2017 at 12:49PM

TheBruce wrote: »

Or should i not be worried - the "scam" of a "score"

You got it.

Clearscore don't lend money or make any decisions.

mrmagooooooo · 14 March 2017 at 1:04PM

Yup ignore the score. It will always usually go down when you open a new account after a few months of payments it should start creaping up again but either way the score is worthless.

autonm · 15 March 2017 at 12:05PM

mrmagooooooo wrote: »

Yup ignore the score. It will always usually go down when you open a new account after a few months of payments it should start creaping up again but either way the score is worthless.

The score maybe worthless as a specific, but what about using it as a guide ?

or is the score so inaccurate, that it is a really bad indicator in the first place?

I have just signed up for Clearscore and interested in its accuracy etc and ppl's thoughts.

Thanks
Michael

DCFC79 · 15 March 2017 at 12:08PM

autonm wrote: »

The score maybe worthless as a specific, but what about using it as a guide ?

or is the score so inaccurate, that it is a really bad indicator in the first place?

I have just signed up for Clearscore and interested in its accuracy etc and ppl's thoughts.

Thanks
Michael

The rating from any of the agencies isn't seen by anyone, it can be used as a guide but you could have a payday entry on your file and still have a score of 999.

stuart30 · 17 March 2017 at 12:07AM

autonm wrote: »

The score maybe worthless as a specific, but what about using it as a guide ?

or is the score so inaccurate, that it is a really bad indicator in the first place?

I have just signed up for Clearscore and interested in its accuracy etc and ppl's thoughts.

Thanks
Michael

Everyone will shout and shout and shout that the "score" is meaningless and has no bearing on your credit file and you must be a complete retard drug taking idiot to take any notice...ok slighttttt exagaration maybe but people keep banging on how its not worth looking at.

However..seems mighty odd as my score has gone up so has the offers and indeed the acceptance of credit availability...:rotfl:

The score as in the numbers are not the be all and end all...but in my experience of checking mine and the wife's CRA files (all three)...the score does seem to be a Reasonable indicator of how your file looks.

forgotmyname · 17 March 2017 at 12:36AM

If the "score" is a reasonable indicator why did my "score" drop when i spent over 50% of my cards limit on one item even though i paid it off in full when the statement arrived?

And even though my "score" dropped they upped my limit without me asking.

HeCh · 17 March 2017 at 9:51AM

Lenders use their own scoring systems. So from a lenders perspective creating a risk score from all the pertinent data available about an individual is a reasonable thing to do when considering whether or not to lend to a particular individual.

The credit reference agencies try to mimic the lenders' risk scoring algorithms and periodically adjust their own to better reflect what actual lenders currently use.

So, I think the credit reference agency scores are a very useful and more importantly an accessible way of getting a general feel for risk status as would be assessed by lenders. They are not perfect (no risk assessment ever is) and so it's best not to obsess over every fluctuation but to be aware of general trends over time and adapt financial behaviour accordingly.

StopIt · 17 March 2017 at 9:59AM

My ClearScore took a dive too when this flag hit:

You have made more than a few applications for credit in the past year

Basically I moved house and bought a couple of things on 0% as well as moving from O2 to EE. It recovered a few months later but frankly, no lender sees that score and circumstance changes were properly reflected in my credit history, which is fine.

One thing is that the actual flag, rather than the score would be a potential issue for lenders until it clears as it looks like you've been trying to get credit from everywhere and would increase the chances of being declined if they use the same data.

Ebe_Scrooge · 17 March 2017 at 10:35AM

HeCh wrote: »

Lenders use their own scoring systems. So from a lenders perspective creating a risk score from all the pertinent data available about an individual is a reasonable thing to do when considering whether or not to lend to a particular individual.

The credit reference agencies try to mimic the lenders' risk scoring algorithms and periodically adjust their own to better reflect what actual lenders currently use.

Yes, every lender will have their own algorithms from which they create a customer profile. This is based, in part, on the data contained on a customer's credit file.

However, the lender's profiling criteria is commercially sensitive, confidential, and never disclosed to any third party. Whilst certain things will be common to most lenders ( being on the electoral roll, for instance ), the details will vary quite considerably - particularly with respect to their preferred target client base. So there is no way the CRA can mimick a lender's algorithm with any degree of accuracy at all, other than by using only the "common" factors that most will use.

stuart30 · 17 March 2017 at 11:46AM

forgotmyname wrote: »

If the "score" is a reasonable indicator why did my "score" drop when i spent over 50% of my cards limit on one item even though i paid it off in full when the statement arrived?

And even though my "score" dropped they upped my limit without me asking.

Reasonable indicator as in your score is classed as poor its unlikely you"ll get decent % credit card so dont even bother trying.

You see you have a crappy score (as i do) and it suggests looking at sub prime cards for instance.

Not saying the score is to believed..simply it shows a quick snap shot of how your file looks.;)

Clearscore taken a nosedive

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