Why is it so stressful?

Rothstein

The scores are not meaningless, you just don't understand them

If she has scores of 300, 300 and 600, she has ZERO chance of getting any credit

If they are 630, 490 and 850, she has EVERY chance of getting credit

Which part of this are you all struggling with ??????

Chappaz

Rothstein wrote: »

The scores are not meaningless, you just don't understand them

If she has scores of 300, 300 and 600, she has ZERO chance of getting any credit

If they are 630, 490 and 850, she has EVERY chance of getting credit

Which part of this are you all struggling with ??????

Because it's nonsense.

The scoring system is internal for every credit agency. They all have their own algorithms.

The lenders don't see the score. They have their own internal algorithms to generate their own score based on what they're looking for (credit type, customer profile etc).

A generic score given by each agency is never guaranteed to be accurate. And what some lenders consider important (to increase their internal score) others will not.

It only very vaguely shows the health of a credit file. You are correct in the respect that very low scores will usually make it less likely to get credit, and vise-versa, but even then, many will get certain types of credit with low scores, and others will get rejected for certain types of credit with high scores.

By all means use the score as a rough benchmark, but the amount of on-time payments, the credit utilisation and other factors are more important - regardless of what the score says.

Rothstein

I am not 12 years old, neither is anyone else on here....

The score is as accurate as it needs to be, it's a very effective indicative way of translating all that boring stuff you just wrote that adds. Itching and helps nobody......

The companies offering scores are equally advanced in how they measure or gauge your creditworthiness.......

The only reason anyone on here keeps repeating that scores mean nothing are clearly that they are not happy with the score these large international companies are giving to them personally, I see no other reason to keep banging on about it ?

Chappaz

loonywitch wrote: »

So we're looking at putting our house up for sale and wanting to buy a bigger house.

Last night I registered for the credit club and noddle, and I'm left feeling rather confused and stressed. I was initially pleased when I saw the score from Experian at 965...however, underneath my hit rating is very weak on further investigation, my mortgage account is not showing and neither is my mobile phone contract. Both companies state they use Experian.

I then register for Noddle to find a score of 597 and a credit rating 3/5. Everything is showing on here and it's correct.

I have a Next account with a small balance which I'm going to clear immediately to see if that helps but other that that I only have a mortgage and my phone bill. There are no defaults and no CCJs, payments are made regular and I'm not sure whether it makes a difference but I'm overpaying my mortgage. Oh, I do have an overdraft of £50 which I put on once when I needed it and I do use it monthly.

My post above further indicates what I'm about to say.

The internal agency score is very generic. It tries to provide a universal score across all types of credit.

In your case though, you're wanting to seek a mortgage from a mortgage company. This means that their own internal systems are going to be a lot less interested in things like credit cards and mobile contracts, and a lot more interested in your history of mortgage payments.

If you have a solid history of on-time mortgage payments, the mortgage provider's internal scoring system will therefore rate you a lot higher than the agency's generic system.

They certainly do care if you've missed payments or defaulted for other types of credit, but they'll value your history of past mortgage payments a lot more than any agency does as that suits what they're looking for.

For example, your MSE credit hit rating might be low, but that's mostly an assessment of how likely you are to get credit cards. If you don't have a credit card, and have rarely/never used one before, the card companies don't have a history of how good you are with paying back credit card debt, so they're less likely to trust you.

However, if your mortgage and any other forms of credit aren't showing on your file, and you're sure that the lender reports to that agency, then it would be best to follow up to ensure that there aren't any errors with reporting activity.

Rothstein

"the amount of on-time payments, the credit utilisation and other factors are more important - regardless of what the score says."

Which of your own words do you not understand ?

If you make on time payments and your utilisation ratios are low , YOUR SCORE WILL GO UP

Why are you keen to say it one way but not accept the blindingly obvious consequence of what you suggest, which is a HIGHER SCORE ?

People come in forums for help and advice, not to be bored to death by people who obviously do not have even a rudimentary grasp of how the system works

Chappaz

Rothstein wrote: »

I am not 12 years old, neither is anyone else on here....

The score is as accurate as it needs to be, it's a very effective indicative way of translating all that boring stuff you just wrote that adds. Itching and helps nobody......

The companies offering scores are equally advanced in how they measure or gauge your creditworthiness.......

The only reason anyone on here keeps repeating that scores mean nothing are clearly that they are not happy with the score these large international companies are giving to them personally, I see no other reason to keep banging on about it ?

Are you 15, perhaps?

I suggest reading what I said. Agency scoring models are very generic. Lender scoring models are very specific and focused on the type of credit and customer profiles they want.

There was a thread on here a few weeks back from someone who had an average score but passed their mortgage credit check with flying colours as it was deemed to be "excellent". Go figure.

The companies can be advanced as they like. The point is that you can't have an accurate one-size-fits-all scoring model when there are hundreds of different models out there for hundreds of different lenders.

It's not that it's hard. It's just that it's physically impossible.

loonywitch

Chappaz wrote: »

However, if your mortgage and any other forms of credit aren't showing on your file, and you're sure that the lender reports to that agency, then it would be best to follow up to ensure that there aren't any errors with reporting activity.

So it says on their websites. In fact, EE say they report to all 3. They are both showing on the other 2 just not Experian and they're are no errors on either

Rothstein

"The point is that you can't have an accurate one-size-fits-all scoring model when there are hundreds of different models out there for hundreds of different lenders."

The point is, you can, Equifax, Experian and Callcredit do just that.....it is deemed the most effective way of translating all the algorithms etc into a easy to understand ( for most of us !) format.....it suits most of the people, most of the time

Using one or two obscure cases to dismiss these large successful companies is vapid, so unless you are about to launch your own company with a better system, I'd leave it to the professionals if I were you, your bitterness and being lowly graded is showing....and it's ugly

Nebulous2

I would avoid using your overdraft on a regular basis. That can look as though you aren't managing to budget.

Chappaz

Rothstein wrote: »

"The point is that you can't have an accurate one-size-fits-all scoring model when there are hundreds of different models out there for hundreds of different lenders."

The point is, you can, Equifax, Experian and Callcredit do just that.....it is deemed the most effective way of translating all the algorithms etc into a easy to understand ( for most of us !) format.....it suits most of the people, most of the time

But not everyone all of the time, I'm afraid, including the creator of this thread. There is no "most of the time". Some people want mortgages, others want credit cards, others want mobile phone contracts, loans, car finance, jobs, rent applications and all sorts. And every lender has their own target customer profile as well.

You might burst a blood vessel if you hang around on this forum much longer though, because you're going to see "the score doesn't matter" at least dozen times per day from pretty much every other regular member apart from you.

And I'm afraid the person who thinks that mobile phone contracts only record defaults and not payments isn't going to convince us otherwise.