Excellent Equifax credit score... terrible Experian credit score!

missk_ensington

Hi everyone, sorry if this is posted in the wrong place but Im just totally confused...

I have always used Experian, have never been late or missed a payment and I am a homewner with decent equity and Im on the electoral roll - but recently probably due to having taken out £12,000 in loans last year to start my business, my credit score has taken a bit of a battering.

So much so, I was extremely mortified when I was refused by E-on when I tried to switch gas/electric suppliers through a comparison website, saying I had failed their credit scoring! I went back and paid whatever it was to see my Experian credit score, and it was 780 which apparently is quite reasonable.

A couple of months have passed, and I really need to apply for a new bank account as Im currently with Halifax and theyve changed their overdraft fee to £1 a day which Im not prepared to pay when Im only ever £50-£100 overdrawn, and also my phone contract is ending and I need a new one but Im too scared to go into a store in case I fail the credit check!! I decided to try Equifax last night to see if they were showing something different that I wasnt aware of, and I paid £15 for the 'see how banks see you' credit scoring and it came up at 487!! It was perceived "Excellent" and said I was a very strong candidate for credit.

So why why why then can I not even get credit to switch gas suppliers???!

Im really upset about it, but daren'y try applying for more credit because more refused applications are going to make my case even worse. That said, Equifax didnt even have any trace of my refused credit or any searches?!?!

exel1966

Sorry to confirm it, but I think you now realise just what these 'so called credit scores' mean - absolutely NOTHING !

They are a marketing tool used by CRA's to relieve you of a few quid from your wallet and that's all. There is NO such thing as a credit score of this nature. Every finance company scores differently based solely on their OWN criteria, there is not a national criteria, therefore there cannot be a score.

As for the Gas - Utility companies do not do credit checks on customers so I'm not sure why a comparison site (Which One ?) would say you failed a check. Are you sure it was a credit check and not an ID verification check? I think there may be some crossed wire here.

binaryuniverse

This is because the majority of lenders search Experian for your data. So leave the "footprint" on there. You can use this to your advantage by finding out which companies use Experian or Equifax.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1033817

that thread should help

missk_ensington

Hi thanks for the reply, I cant remember which comparison site it was but it was one of the well known ones.... Go Compare maybe? The email says...


Unfortunately we are unable to supply you with energy as your credit application has been denied. As with any situation like this we're unable to tell you why this has happened. However you can get more information by writing to the credit agency and requesting a report.

Ok so since we cant reply on credit agency scoring, do we know how other lenders score, and if so is it possible for me to try and work out whos scoring system would favour me more?

missk_ensington

binaryuniverse wrote: »

This is because the majority of lenders search Experian for your data. So leave the "footprint" on there. You can use this to your advantage by finding out which companies use Experian or Equifax.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1033817

that thread should help

Thanks, I have looked on there but there are only a couple that use Equifax exclusively (most say EQ, EXP so I cant tell which one they would actually use).

It was useful in finding out o2 phones use Equifax exclusively, but Im not sure how that fares if I went into somewhere like Phones4U to get the best deal??

izools

There are no bank account providers out there that solely search Equifax.

Royal Bank of Scotland and Natwest (part of RBS) search Equifax, and Experian, but they seem to weight the Equifax data more heavily. I say this because RBS gave me a £1,000 overdraft and £20,000 loan when I had a "Good" equifax score and a "Very Poor" experian score. They searched both.

As regad to mobile phones, O2, T-Mobile, and Virgin Moble search Equifax exclusively. T-Moble have some really good value tarriffs kicking around at the moment, too.

Credit card companies that exclusively search Equifax are Barclaycard and Sygma Bank. Sygma cards include the Silver Card and the [url=https://www.your-application.co.uk/netfinancecertegymicrosite/flybe/PaymentProtection.aspx[/url]Flybe Card[/url].

As regard to Phones 4U, unlike Carphone Warehouse who use their own in house credit scoring, they use the networks scoring, so if you were to look at an O2 / T-Mobile / Virgin Mobile deal from them it would still be Equifax.

My advice would be to apply for the bank account first, as that will be more heavily credit scored than the mobile phone and are more likely to turn you down due to excessive credit search history.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

PS - although HSBC also search Equifax and Experian in relation to a bank account application they are much stricter than RBS group and more likely to decline you if you have a poor score with either CRA

Jemma-T

missk_ensington wrote:

Excellent Equifax credit score... terrible Experian credit score!

Exactly my point = both are entirely worthless companies and provide no valid service for the private consumer.

Both companies would be out of business in a year if they stopped taking credit card payments for their scam 'service'.

Far too many people with not enough brains opening accounts for these scumbag companies and dumping the charge on credit cards they can't afford. There's irony in there somewhere but it must be great being an Experian/Equifax shareholder.

oxenryd

Could you be saying this because your scores are !!!!!!? Why can't people take responsability for the way they run their accounts ? It's always someone else's fault !

And no, I don't work for Experian or any other agency