Noodle Credit Rating Help Im So upset

bellyeoman

Did a free Noodle check myself and amazed my score is poor only 2/5 (562 score)
I have been through whole file and there is not one late payment or default. I have rented since 1997 no mortgage. I have one credit card ( no defaults /late payments) with balance on 814 and credit limit of 10k. In a panic after seeing my score I have just paid this off in full so zero balance as of this morning. Otherwise I have car HP agreement 6 months old for about 6k , home shopping account of about 3k. I earn 40k. No debt other issues.
Only other issue I can think of my partner ( not married but live together last 9 yr - and applied unsuccessfully for mortgage about 8 yr ago) was bankrupt​ in the past ( says the 5 year timescales for this was completed a year ago) there is nothing on the noodle online file about this but could it be " association" with his debt ? How do I check this? Will completely paying off my visa Barclaycard this morning help
Desperately needing good credit score for leasing and this is so depressing as I have paid my bills every month on time
Any help advice hugely appreciated

[Deleted User]

You may gather from the occasional thread round these parts that the score is meaningless. You don't need a good score for leasing. Or for anything else. You may need an absence of bad things in your credit history.

So ignore the score, check the data and make sure everything is accurate. Keep to the terms of your agreements and don't overload yourself with debt.

Pixie5740

Turn that frown upside down.

on what your credit score really means

By Martin | Edited by Johanna

If you've paid to get a credit score from one of the credit agencies, how reliable is it? We run through the truth about credit scores.

I’ve just found out that my credit score has dropped – should I be worried? Right, hold on there for a second. Actually, you don't have a credit score in the UK, you don’t have a credit rating, and there’s no such thing as a credit blacklist.
So, when you say your credit score has dropped – what exactly do you mean by that?

Well, I paid a credit reference agency to check my credit score and it's dropped. OK. So you went to one of the credit agencies – Equifax, Experian and Callcredit – and paid them a sum to get your 'credit score'. You'll get a score up to 600 from Equifax, up to 999 from Experian and up to five from Callcredit.

That's very common, and it's common to be confused about exactly what this is.

So I do get a score, but it's worthless? What you have to understand is this score doesn’t really mean that much. The first thing you need to appreciate is when you apply to a lender is that it will judge you based on three criteria.

Firstly, your application form details (which the credit reference agencies don’t have). Secondly, any past dealings you’ve had with that lender (which the credit reference agencies might not know). And thirdly, the information contained in your credit reference files (which the credit rating agencies do know).

So, the first thing to understand is that this score is based on incomplete information. The next thing to understand is different lenders are looking for different things, so they score you differently.

Just because one lender rejects you doesn’t mean another lender will do the same. The idea that this is all based on some simple score given to you by one of the credit reference agencies is false. At best, it's just an indicative guide to roughly how good or bad a risk you are.

In that case – why do they sell it to me? Well, the key word in what you’ve just said is ‘sell’. They sell it to you. Credit reference agencies used to make all their money from selling data to lenders. The idea was to help lenders predict your behaviour, which allowed them to assess whether or not you were a good person to lend to. They do that by deciding not just if you are a good or bad risk, but if you will be profitable or not.

Then some bright spark at the credit reference agencies realised they could generate a business called 'credit management'. It meant they could start to sell you all the other sorts of data and monitoring products for the first time and start making money from it. You ask why they sell it to you – well, it makes them money.

More 60 seconds
The 5% savings loophole
Using credit cards abroad

Does that mean it’s completely worthless and I should ignore it? No, I wouldn’t go that far. It's a loose indication of your rough creditworthiness, and certainly it's worth looking at the things they say are blemishes to see what you can do to improve your credit.
Where I think scoring doesn’t work is, for example, imagine you closed a credit card with a high credit limit that you'd had a long time, but didn't use any more. It's perfectly possible that your score would drop because a long relationship means it's a credit card that could give a good prediction of your behaviour.

But it also needs to be understood closing this would count as a positive for some lenders because you had less available credit.
The fact that your credit scorer has decided to reduce the score it gives you because you've cancelled that card doesn’t mean other lenders will do the same. Nor does it mean there's anything wrong.

OK – right, I understand. So what should I do to improve my credit? Well, it's important to think of this like a beauty parade. Just as everybody finds different people attractive – so do lenders.

There are general things you can do to 'rouge' up your credit appearance that make sense everywhere. As this guide's only 60 seconds long, I'm not going to go into that here. Instead, read the full Credit Scores guide.

It's very important to understand – this is art, not science.

What works for one lender won’t necessarily work for another – so there's no tried and tested right answer.

:money:

Candyapple

Do you hold any joint bank accounts / other joint products with your partner?

If yes, then if she has a poor credit history then that will be affecting your credit history too as you will be financially linked.

You should also check your credit reports with the other 2 CRAs:

Experian: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub
Equifax: https://www.clearscore.com

Paying off your card this morning won't have helped as it will probably take 2-3 months for your files to update and show this.

Why have a £10k limit if you don't spend anywhere near that much on it? As it stands you will have £19k available credit and £40k salary. That means you might fail on affordability issues if you applied for credit elsewhere in the future.

Do you not have a bank account(s) or any mobile phone contract? Do they show on your files?

takman

bellyeoman wrote: »

Did a free Noodle check myself and amazed my score is poor only 2/5 (562 score)

Maybe you should try attending some cooking lessons then you can learn how to make better "noodles" and improve your score. :rotfl:

But if your interested in your finances then I recommend checking your credit report on "Noddle" and delay your cooking lessons for now.

takman

Candyapple wrote: »

Why have a £10k limit if you don't spend anywhere near that much on it? As it stands you will have £19k available credit and £40k salary. That means you might fail on affordability issues if you applied for credit elsewhere in the future.

£19k of credit available on a £40k salary won't cause any issues at all with future applications if you have a healthy credit report. Like many people on here my credit cards alone have limits more than my annual salary and i don't have any issues getting a good limit on new ones I apply for.

Plus lowering a £10k limit would be a bad idea because it would increase their credit utilisation percentage when they spend on the card, which could be a big negative if they lower it too much.

Chrysalis

Ignore it.

I get over 800 on experian (MSE creditclub)
A good score on ClearScore

Then when I registered on Noddle, it gave me only a fair 3/5 rating, which is at odds with the other 2 agencies, and I not been turned down for any 0% credit either. By pure coincidence Noddle requires you to pay £30 a year to see "why your score is low"

Its a money making scheme for them, just check if your file is accurate and ignore the score.

teffers

My Noddle score is set using a combination of a Pigeon and a tennis ball.

It's never failed to predict my credit-lumpyness.

StopIt

I'd be worried if I was rated on my noodles.


Or by them, for that matter.

iamdavidbecker

Are you on the electoral register? It could be, bizarrely, that you don't have enough credit and they cannot form enough of a credit history to give you a realistic score.

Have a look at your Experian report via moneysavingexpert Credit Club... they also explain on there why you might have a lower than expected credit rating

MABLE

bellyeoman wrote: »

Did a free Noodle check myself and amazed my score is poor only 2/5 (562 score)
I have been through whole file and there is not one late payment or default. I have rented since 1997 no mortgage. I have one credit card ( no defaults /late payments) with balance on 814 and credit limit of 10k. In a panic after seeing my score I have just paid this off in full so zero balance as of this morning. Otherwise I have car HP agreement 6 months old for about 6k , home shopping account of about 3k. I earn 40k. No debt other issues.
Only other issue I can think of my partner ( not married but live together last 9 yr - and applied unsuccessfully for mortgage about 8 yr ago) was bankrupt​ in the past ( says the 5 year timescales for this was completed a year ago) there is nothing on the noodle online file about this but could it be " association" with his debt ? How do I check this? Will completely paying off my visa Barclaycard this morning help
Desperately needing good credit score for leasing and this is so depressing as I have paid my bills every month on time
Any help advice hugely appreciated

Just looked at Noddle and mine is 588 3/5. However never stopped me getting a £3000 overdraft facility from Nationwide bs a few days ago.