What your credit score really means

MusS10 wrote: »

Why can't we individuals be shown our credit reports and score exactly as they would be shown to lenders? And similarly why can't the lenders see exactly what we see when we/they purchase a report from any CRA? And furthermore why can't the information commissioner enforce that CRAs show both lender and borrower the same information and/or scores?

Why do they complicate everything??? :mad:

Because you would need as many scores as you would have lenders. They all have different criteria.

Lenders do not get credit scores from CRAs.

What they get are details of how much you have borrowed, the type of debt (credit card, loans, overdrafts, etc), whether you have paid on time and how much your payments are.

They get details of defaults and CCJs

and they get details of any "hard" application type searches.

You get more information than they do, as they don't see who you have got accounts with or who has searched your file. They just see there is an account for a type of borrowing with x balance at y rate and that you have been paying z.

People get confused between a credit score (a number determined by an algorithm unique to each CRA based solely on your credit file) and Credit scoring.

Credit Scoring looks at the criteria set by the lender itself, and will take into account details you put on your application form, any past dealings that lender (or other companies in the same group) may have had with you and your credit file. Everything there is then scored against their criteria.

To harmonise things would a) give lenders too much information about who you are borrowing from, b) give lenders too much information about other lenders' borrowing criteria and c) confuse the hell out of people.

That is why the best advice you can have is to ignore the score and concentrate on making sure the information is correct.

MusS10 wrote: »

Why can't we individuals be shown our credit reports and score exactly as they would be shown to lenders? And similarly why can't the lenders see exactly what we see when we/they purchase a report from any CRA? And furthermore why can't the information commissioner enforce that CRAs show both lender and borrower the same information and/or scores?

Why do they complicate everything??? :mad:

Nothing is complicated, its fine as it is so why change it.

MusS10 wrote: »

i have access to my noddle an clearscore on a regular and neither of them show any CCJs.
I recently got a 30 day full access to 4 CRAs:
1- Experian shows 2 CCJs with a completely different first name. Yet no alias or other names.
2-Equifax shows no CCJs no Alias but shows those 2 CCJs with wrong first name in the attributable data section.
3-Callcredit shows no CCJs no Alias.
4- Checkmyfile shows 4 CRAs (Equifax, Experian, Callcredit and Crediva)
a- Equifax: No ccjs
b- Experian: No ccjs
c- Call credit: 2 ccjs
d- Crediva : No ccjs

It sounds like a case of mistaken identity rather than over-complication. You would be best contacting the CRAs in error to get your reports corrected.

MusS10 wrote: »

I am already dealing with the ID issue..
But I still can't get my head around Callcredit (Noddle) showing different info to me than that it shows lenders (checkmyfile act as lenders and purchase my report)
And same said about Equifax: it shows me different stuff to what it shows lenders..
And I an not even mentioning other small discrepancies that i saw while comparing reports.

I just wish that the ICO puts tougher rules and even fine CRAs who provide inaccurate and/or contradictory information about individuals. Calamities like these can make huge detriments in people's finances..

You do have a point but I think that your case of mistaken ID is unusual. I check all of my data with all of the free providers and have never seen any discrepancies other than timing differences.

You also state above that checkmyfile act as lenders. Are you able to clarify your statement as I was not aware that they did this.

MusS10 wrote: »

As for the checkmyfile, I queried several mistakes on my various reports and here is one of their replies which clearly suggest that checkmyfile acts like a lender when obtaining one's report and therefore receives the info in the same format that any lender would.

Hi MusS10,

Thanks for this and I understand what you are saying.

I wonder if any users here know if Checkmyfile has access to any more information on us than we do ourselves?