FAO: James Jones, Experian Rep

YorkshireBoy

udydudy wrote: »

frankly the initial poster having a bankruptcy order and not a discharged bankrupt in itself should, I would think , make for a lower score than her mother, irrespective of outstanding credit.

OP says they have a "discharged bankruptcy order" (bold print at the end of the first post).

On a side issue, I wonder if the Experian Rep would have commented on it if he hadn't been 'rounded on'? Hopefully he'll pass comment on izools' (very) specific question when he gets back to work tomorrow.

buttscratcher

This forum is full of jokers! The amount of times I've read how useless the credit score provided by these agencies is, I'm dumbfounded at how many members have still coughed up to see their 'score'.

You guys remind of someone desperate to be graded and told theyre good little boys or girls and as such deserve to be fleeced for having this fragile crutch to make yourselves feel better.

I'll tell you what, how aboout you guys give me all your personal date along with a payment of £10 and i will provide you a score out of 1000 to indicate the level of buffoonery you have achieved- I'm sure most of you will hit 1000 without breaking a sweat :mad:

lisyloo

I disagree(I normally agree with your posts) with Lisyloo that it is not a mis-sell

I mean in the legal sense.
If you believe they don't do what they say (and note they never claim to reflect any lenders score) then I would encourage you to put up the technical facts and perhaps a template letter than MSE members can benefit from - that would be really good practical help for people.
There are loads of products out there (like diet pills for example) which for 95% of cases don't do any good, but the claims they make e.g. in conjuntion with a calories controlled diet, are entirely true when taken in context.
My claim is that when taken in context, it's not a mis-sell, but many people entirely thorugh their own imagination think they are getting something they are not, a bit like a dieter who likes to imagine they will lose weight if they ONLY take some pills which is almost never the claims made by the retailers.

frankly the initial poster having a bankruptcy order and not a discharged bankrupt in itself should, I would think , make for a lower score than her mother

I am not sayign there aren't anomalies or errors in some cases.
In individual cases they might have a case.
I was generally talking aboout the general case, where I think people are getting what they are sold (not necessarily what they expect).
But I'd still encourage those who think otherwise to do something practical to change the situation.

lisyloo

so WHY do people obsess about their scores ?

I think the vast majority of people aren't savvy and don't do proper research which is available for free and easily available.
I'm afraid most people just aren't interested in finance.
I'm not interested in car mechanics and put my trust in people in the industry.
It can be hard for people who find finance fascinating to empathise with people who can't be bothered to spend a few hours on their mortgage to save thousands of pounds, but I'm afraid you have to accept that the vast majority of the population are like this and have no inclination towards financial matters.

We also have extremely poor education in the country on financial matters which is I think something that Martin campaigns on.

udydudy

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

OP says they have a "discharged bankruptcy order" (bold print at the end of the first post).......

Sorry my mitake not only that I overlooked the highlighted part stating it was a discharged bankruptcy, I guess I got a bit overworked bythe issue. Normally I guess bankruptcy become discharged after 1 year though not automatically.

Lessbutbetter

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

While a 999 Experian Credit Score (a scorecard that we have built especially for CreditExpert customers) indicates that your credit history is in great shape,

This is the bit that gets me everytime. If Experians score was out of a total of 100 points and someone had a 100 score i'd still think that was pretty bloody hard to believe because of the complex calculating system we're told about to actually generate this figure. However it's actually out of 999 points! People are logging on and seeing this figure of 999 and thinking "nice one, i've got great credit" and not even thinking that this seems a little strange. The sheer probability of someone having 100% perfect credit out of a total of 999 points seems ridiculous, but obviously James will tell me otherwise.

Money making nonsense!

lisyloo

<playing devils advocate>

So as usual lots of complainging - rip off, scam - but no-one prepared to take a case to the authorities or willing to put together a template letter.
The usual loan of moaning with absolutely no basis or teeth.

</note deliberately deigned to throw down the gauntlet</>

izools

lisyloo wrote: »

<playing devils advocate>

So as usual lots of complainging - rip off, scam - but no-one prepared to take a case to the authorities or willing to put together a template letter.
The usual loan of moaning with absolutely no basis or teeth.

</note deliberately deigned to throw down the gauntlet</>

I'm not shouting rip-off or scam,

I'm genuinely intrigued as to why Credit Expert's scoring model doesn't consider the presence of a discharged bankruptcy order a negative factor, and giving them the opportinuty to explain / correct this for everyone else's benefit.

udydudy

lisyloo wrote: »

......So as usual lots of complainging - rip off, scam - but no-one prepared to take a case to the authorities or willing to put together a template letter.
The usual loan of moaning with absolutely no basis or teeth......QUOTE]
all formal complaints start at a point(mostly complaining) but once it picks up the templates and comlaints will follow. We have to put it into perspective that credit scores by CRA is a recent phenomenon(about 2-3 years old) and only due to the recession have people started to pay for it.

As more and more people pay for it and discover to their surprise that there is nearly no connection between actual lending criteria and the credit scores given by the CRAs, that will people start complaining to the regulators.

PPI was around for a long long time before it was declared a mis-sell. I guess this time around the complaints have started faster and it is up to the CRAs to give their justification not a load of hogwash about complex calculation.

Bankruptcy (discharged or otherwise) do affect the credit standing of an individual and hence it is extremely surprising that the posters score is better than somebody with no bankruptcy and regular payment standing.

JohalaReewi

The big con is that Experian (and Equifax, etc.) market and sell these as credit scores (even James calls them this in his posts on this thread). The reality is that Experian (and Equifax,etc.) are not lenders of credit so these numbers are just plain old scores, and not actual credit scores.

They should be marketed and sold as your "Experian score" (or Equifax score, etc.).