Barclaycard have damaged my credit rating are they liable?

ILW

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Then it's a bad guestimate, and they should not be giving them, let alone selling them as if they are accurate, and reflect what real businesses use.

Does that mean it's useless then?

Yes they are no more than a rough guide designed to get a fiver from guillable people. They cannot be accurate as all lenders use different internal scoring criteria.

BigDave81

Surely Experian not having any idea whether you earn a wage of £2k or £200k p/a would be a big indicator that they cannot give accurate information as this would be a main deciding factor along with your outgoings, which once again they will not be privvy to also.

I would have to agree that they are a mere indicator and help lenders extract some details to help them base their decisions.

ILW

BigDave81 wrote: »

I would have to agree that they are a mere indicator and help lenders extract some details to help them base their decisions.

The Experian credit score (the 1 -999 thing) is not even looked at by lenders, they use their own scoring.

BigDave81

I meant extracting details such as other finacial commitments, previous defaults etc, I agree completely the score given to people has no bearing on credit companies or credit worthiness

wrangler5

Methinks we may all be getting credit score and credit file mixed up. They are two completely different things. Credit score means very little and gives people the false impression that just because they have a high score they are somehow more desireable to lenders. It's your credit file that is the more relevant to a lender.

Paul_Herring

wrangler5 wrote: »

Methinks we may all be getting credit score and credit file mixed up.

Not all of us, no.

They are two completely different things. Credit score means very little and gives people the false impression that just because they have a high score they are somehow more desireable to lenders.

Indeed.

It is this false impression that I refer to back in post #3, and point out that Experian are continuing this false impression in post #11.

Moggles_2

I have gone from someone with a credit report of 995/1000 who paid his card off in full every month, to someone who now has no credit and a 'poor' rating and I am still completely consistent!

It's not uncommon for forum users to post different scores from the three credit reference agencies or various scores from the same agency a few weeks apart. I suspect that the lenders' scores, had we access to them, would be different from each other as well! I wouldn't let these numbers distract you from tackling the things that really matter.

For tips, have a look at the *Credit Rating: how it works and how to improve it guide*, especially Martin's *Manage and Improve your credit score* article, to check nothing's working against you that could be easily put right. (Mistitled on purpose, btw, because so many people think credit scores are what lenders look for)

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/credit-rating-credit-score#improve

TheExpert

It is frustrating to see drivel posted by people who have no idea about the discussed subject.

Most self-respecting businesses which build credit scorecards will use the relevant Credit Agency's score as one of the inputs into the formula for their own score. So while the Experian score would not be the decider, having a better score will almost always mean that the lender score will also be higher unless some parameters in your application bring the score down (eg. excellent credit history, but very low income)

For those who don't understand, here is an EXTREMELY OVERSIMPLIFIED example of a model:

Bank Score = -200 + Experian Score + Salary/100 - Amount owed/10.

As to why people can get credit with low scores, a number of financial services companies will use a decision tree followed by a scorecard method. So on certain products earning a particular salary (as long as you can prove it with payslips) could allow you to bypass the need for an internal scoring system if the product is inherently subprime and you do not break regulatory or internal terms (indebtedness index, etc).

Note to the OP: If you hadn't gone overlimit or made a late payment, I would seriously doubt that your credit score went down as much as it did just because your open to buy went down. I would suspect that there is another issue here.

ILW

TheExpert wrote: »

It is frustrating to see drivel posted by people who have no idea about the discussed subject.

Most self-respecting businesses which build credit scorecards will use the relevant Credit Agency's score as one of the inputs into the formula for their own score. .

Please advise where you got this information from?

Paul_Herring

It is frustrating to see drivel posted by people who have no idea about the discussed subject.

Indeed.

Especially when they post explicit facts without any citation.

Once again, the "Credit Score" as sold by Experian (et. al.) is implied to be totally representative of how likely you are to get credit (hence the appearance of the word "credit" in it's name.) Which implies it should be taking into account stuff that the credit businesses also take into account.

If it doesn't they should be calling it something else. (No, I have no idea what, and no, adding footnotes to "Credit Score*" won't do either.)