Are credit scores really useless?

ricardinho88

With a lot of comparison websites and our very own MSE offering product matches for you, are those matches based on your credit score? I thought your credit HISTORY was more relevant to the lender than your score. Should you just ignore the products that you've got the most chance of getting approved for (according to the product matcher) and go for whatever you want? Provided you have a good credit history of course.

E.g I have a poor credit score but my credit history is excellent and I haven't missed a payment for years. Should I just ignore the reccomended products?

[Deleted User]

The scores are useless, but the eligibility checker should be recommending products based on your file and the lender's criteria.

GingerBob_3

The scores are indicative of your ability to obtain credit; "indicative" being the operative word. It would help if the CRAs issued some sort of detail about how they calculate the scores, but they won't.

20aday

Yes, they really are useless.

My Noddle 'score' is three out of five (so any finance I do for would attract a higher interest rate compared to the "headline rate" according to them).

However Tesco Bank offered me a loan at the rep. APR of 3.6% last month so you can tell how badly affected I am by my "score" :rotfl:

ricardinho88

20aday wrote: »

Yes, they really are useless.

My Noddle 'score' is three out of five (so any finance I do for would attract a higher interest rate compared to the "headline rate" according to them).

However Tesco Bank offered me a loan at the rep. APR of 3.6% last month so you can tell how badly affected I am by my "score" :rotfl:

I have a score of 1 with Noddle, and a couple of months ago I was accepted for a Platinum Barclaycard. I don't think Noddle is very good.

20aday

ricardinho88 wrote: »

I have a score of 1 with Noddle, and a couple of months ago I was accepted for a Platinum Barclaycard. I don't think Noddle is very good.

There's definitely a bizarre logic at Callcredit towers because they are the Credit Agency Tesco Bank used to conduct the hard search during my loan application!

chuckley

Noddle have a default setting of 1 no matter what.

however, frequent address changes can be the biggest negative regardless of 'good credit history', even if on electoral role each time.

why because most of them don't update in real time, so by time they get the new info, you application looks like a lie.

For me, Equifax is the works. random bits of info. old and new with nothing in between. hence why I was declined by someone that just uses Equifax. (their letter said so).

boo_star

They are generally useless, yes.

Both Equifax and Noddle have given me a lower (not low) rating because of credit checks in the past 6 months.

One was for a credit card (accepted) and the other was for a new current account.

I applied for a new credit card last Sunday (Nationwide Select.). Approved for £3500 at the headline rate and have sent back the signed documents.

Financial institutions aren't as black and white as the CRA's suggest.

Anthorn

Personally, I would be more inclined to criticise the CRAs themselves and not really the credit scores they provide and also the lenders themselves. This is because the CRAs are not used as they are intended to be used - to assess credit worth.

This is because the use of only one CRA by both lenders and eligibilty checkers and even by ourselves provides a false view of our credit worth.

For example all my credit searches in the last six months have searched only Experian but the lenders themselves report to Equifax and Call Credit and not to Experian.

So now I have the wacky situation that all my credit accounts both open and settled including banking, utilities, credit cards and loans are on Equifax without exception and to a slightly lesser extent on Call Credit but there are only 3 open credit card accounts and one utility settled account on Experian.

So the outcome of the above is that a credit search whether soft or complete on Experian alone provides a false view of my credit worth. But that's exactly what lenders do!

MEM62

Are credit scores really useless?

The short answer - yes!

crystal_pixie_2

I must admit I realised that they were completely worthless when my excellent score went down to poor with no changes.

As of then I have managed to get a credit card and a new current account.

So for me personally the score was completely worthless.