Experian Credit score

Suzz_2

I've just taken out the 30 day trial with Experian and got my credit report + 'score' - cost £5.99, but I got the report for free and was curious...

Bit surprised at my score - FAIR... I'm on the electoral register & have NEVER missed a CC payment. Only 3 searches in last 12 months... I thought I would have made 'Good'...

I've had quite a few cards in the last 6 years, but only about 8 still open, a few on 0%'s.

They are quite vague on how this score is calculated - they just suggest keeping up on payments and not making too many applications to imporove your score. I wonder if they take account of outstanding debt, number of accounts (potential debt) and numbers of closed accounts.

Be very useful to hear anyone elses experience on this?

mrtickle

I haven't seen the Experian example scoring system, but I did use the Equifax example system last week. It gave Excellent/Good/Poor/Very Poor (there could be more adjectives but I didn't get them in my results) ratings for various sub-categories:

- no. of active accounts and settled accounts at current address (1 or 2 active preferred; active preferred to settled)
- no. of active accounts and settled accounts at previous address (preferred that you update your address)
- age of oldest account (>36 months preferred)
- no. of derogatory items in payment history
- no. of payments that are up to date
- previous credit arrangments paid in full or not
- no. of defaults
- Electoral Roll at current address (3 to 4 years preferred)
- Electoral Roll at previous address (3 to 4 years preferred)
- no. of searches in last 6 months (<=2 searches preferred)
- no. of bankruptcies
- no. of county court judgements

At the end of that was an overall score. (Because I moved during the year and it only checks the annual Electoral Roll and not the "rolling register" which I am definitely on, it thought I was off the register at both old and new addresses and my score was through the floor >:( )

HTH

Suzz_2

Thanks - that's interesting, but not sure if I follow the first couple of criteria.

Does this mean if you have more than 2 active accounts, you score goes down? If you have a mortgage and a mobile phone account, presumably these will count as 2 active accounts. And active prefferred to settled - I though it was better to cancel old cards. It takes 6 years before they delete closed accounts off your report.

Age of oldest account > 36 months - so it's better to have at least one card long term...

I'll take a look at the Equifax site. I wonder if CC companies just look at this score in making a decision rather than trawling through the full report manually (the reports are pretty long, well mine is). If so it would be in people's interest to keep an eye on their score.

lisyloo

Does this mean if you have more than 2 active accounts, you score goes down?

My 30 days has just run out but I think it says "at least" 1 or 2.

Not having more than that seems very difficult to me, for example a mortgage, home phone and mobile phone would blow your limit and that's without any credit or score cards.
I had something like 8 or 10 and I only have 2 credit cards so nothing excessive at all.

And active prefferred to settled - I though it was better to cancel old cards. It takes 6 years before they delete closed accounts off your report.

I have to say I was a bit baffled by this as well.
I think I was marked down for having settled accounts although as you say I thought it was beeter to close them.

Age of oldest account > 36 months - so it's better to have at least one card long term...

Yes but doesn't have to be a card, could be a mortgage, mobile phone or home phone account etc.

Galstonian

I think you need a super sized pinch of salt here. It doesn't mention anything about type or amount of credit arrangements. Lenders can also ask for additional information such as salary and use that in conjunction with the CRA data. From the list of items they give it would truly be impossible for lenders to assess credit worthiness, there must be more to it in my opinion.

trackmeister

The same thing has happened to me!

I signed up for the trial and then got my credit score .. 750 which is in the "fair" catogary.

I have never been late with a payment, hold 6 platinum cards and five of those have a zero balance. I am 35 and earn six figures !!

Im losing no sleep over it, never been declined for anything, so my advice dont worry.

mgr1970

IT goes to show how close these things are i am in the same position as trackmeister but carry a balance of less than 50% on each card, i got a score of 733 and was rated poor.
It said i should go to the cab for help with repayments every account on my file is perfect 000's i just had to laugh.

Suzz_2

Well, I've just got my scoring & report from Equifax. I get a Good from them !

I've noticed that different searches appear with them e.g. Barclaycard use Equifax (no search recorded with Experien - I assumed they hadn't done one as my current account's with Barcalys). I had fewer searches recorded with Equifax- I guess that the reason for the better score...

jonnyb

At the risk of being jumped on, I work for Experian, on the business credit side, but I know about some of the consumer score side.
In my opinion - NOT EXPERIAN'S - the credit score on the creditexpert site is a gimmick. I subscribe but I've never paid for my score, as it's worthless to me without some kind of benchmark.
I guarantee that those companies who use automated scorecards for consumer products have very specific criteria, and may have different weightings for similar criteria, so your score may vary from one lender to the next even if the data is exactly the same. To answer Suzz's question, they should not trawl thru the raw credit file - too long, too time consuming, too expensive - but the score they get should not be what you saw on the creditexpert website.

mrtickle

Indeed. I was at pains to use the term example score in my earlier post. My understanding is that these systems are there to give consumers an idea of the sort of scoring system that companies doing searches might use, and each company doing a search will have a different system and none of them get a score handed to them by experian or equifax.

Galstonian

Which begs the question why would you pay for an idea of your score? You can get the data the idea is based on for less and can probably get a better idea from that.