Free Experian trial...

TheLondoner

Hi guys,

So after Tesco rejected me and Noddle and clearscore said I had a good rating, 5/5 etc, I did a free Experian credit check (taking the trial), and it showed me as being having a rating of "fair".

After reading the notes and everything I thought I'd share my findings with you guys so you don't make the same mistakes I did.

Every time you open a current account or any other account for that matter (even if you don't request credit/overdraft), you are credit checked. The more accounts you try to open (and credit checks that are done), the more it counts against you and decreases your Experian score. After 6 months of no new openings, it shouldn't count against you but other banks (I think), can still see the open accounts you have, and possible the ones you've closed. Not sure about the latter, but they can definitely see what accounts you have and their duration I believe.

To boost my score again, I will be bringing down the number of my current accounts from the 8 or so that I have to maybe 4-ish, after the 6% HSBC savings accounts mature after a year.

My advice: It seems having too many current accounts to your name counts against you and negatively impacts your credit score, so try to keep it to a minimum. If I had known what I know now, sooner, I wouldn't have opened so many accounts for the bonuses/6% interest regular savings accounts etc.

Hope this helps anyone reading this!

I think it's well worth using the free trial just so you can see what kind of info appears on the credit report so you can think more carefully before opening new accounts.

msallen

I agree its worth taking the free trial (as long as you remember to cancel), but please don't go thinking that Experian's rating is worth anything. It is the prospective lender's rating of you that matters.

While it's possible that some lenders may balk at you having 8 current accounts, I have more than this and have never had any problems. Just be sure to not apply for overdrafts on them all.

[Deleted User]

From what I can see of Experian's scoring system, the best way to keep your score high is to turn 18 and never take out any credit products.

TheLondoner

There's an option that lets you cancel your membership as soon as you're signed up. You just click the: cancel membership after trial option. Was interesting just to see the kind of stuff they looked at to be honest!

takman

TheLondoner wrote: »

Hi guys,

So after Tesco rejected me and Noddle and clearscore said I had a good rating, 5/5 etc, I did a free Experian credit check (taking the trial), and it showed me as being having a rating of "fair".

After reading the notes and everything I thought I'd share my findings with you guys so you don't make the same mistakes I did.

Every time you open a current account or any other account for that matter (even if you don't request credit/overdraft), you are credit checked. The more accounts you try to open (and credit checks that are done), the more it counts against you and decreases your Experian score. After 6 months of no new openings, it shouldn't count against you but other banks (I think), can still see the open accounts you have, and possible the ones you've closed. Not sure about the latter, but they can definitely see what accounts you have and their duration I believe.

To boost my score again, I will be bringing down the number of my current accounts from the 8 or so that I have to maybe 4-ish, after the 6% HSBC savings accounts mature after a year.

My advice: It seems having too many current accounts to your name counts against you and negatively impacts your credit score, so try to keep it to a minimum. If I had known what I know now, sooner, I wouldn't have opened so many accounts for the bonuses/6% interest regular savings accounts etc.

Hope this helps anyone reading this!

I think it's well worth using the free trial just so you can see what kind of info appears on the credit report so you can think more carefully before opening new accounts.

Why would you want to miss out on so much money just to make your credit file look better!, thats crazy.

The entire point of keeping your credit file looking good is so that you can get credit and accounts to save/make money. If you start closing accounts and not taking up offers and loosing money just to make your credit file look better then you really need to rethink what you are doing!.

I get the "magic number" from experian because i have a BarclayCard. Currently my my "credit score" is 999 even though i have 6 current accounts and i have closed a few and opened a few this year to get bonuses/interest it then drops by a few points and goes back up again in 2 months to 999.
So this just shows how poor the system is because your being marked down alot for having 8 current accounts, yet i get a "perfect" score for having 6 and opening and closing a few this year!.

So in summary just ignore any score and keep up all payments but dont miss out on money/interest just because your worried about your credit report!.