MSE Credit Club affordability

johnny9999

My credit card affordability score has always been fairly low, but my loan affordability has always been excellent - top of the scale.

Logged on every month for the past year, and now this month my loan affordability has dropped from the very top score to the very bottom.

No other changes. I haven't taken any new credit cards out. I've not done any searches. My score has actually gone up slightly. My credit card debt has been around the £1K mark all year.

I know the affordability thing isn't official, it's just an added extra. BUT why would it have gone down so drastically if there's been no changes.

By the way, my partners has remained high and has not gone down like mine.

Thanks

[Deleted User]

Ignore them.

The scores/ratings/affordability scales are made up.

Lenders will use their own set of algorithms to judge you.

johnny9999

Hi

Realise they are made up.

But why would it suddenly go down (drastically) after a year.

So the question is more of who can I talk to to maybe raise a bug request or talk in detail?

Thanks

[Deleted User]

The temperature's dropped a bit recently, maybe it rises and falls inline with that?

There's no need to raise it with anyone since it bears no real-life resemblance to anything realistic

[Deleted User]

As per above - ignore the scores and ratings as they are made up and are best guesses at the most.

Lenders will use their own internal tools/mechanisms to score you based on affordability etc.

[Deleted User]

Which is why you should ignore it

It's not accurate

Lizbetty

It's caused me a massive panic today! I'm glad I found this thread, we're in the middle of applying for a remortgage and it's always stressful anyway but when my husband checked his affordability rating I felt ill! Our credit scores are all good but the poor affordability score makes no sense.

It's good to know that it's probably nonsense. :T

MSE_Chris

Lucyeff wrote: »

It's caused me a massive panic today! I'm glad I found this thread, we're in the middle of applying for a remortgage and it's always stressful anyway but when my husband checked his affordability rating I felt ill! Our credit scores are all good but the poor affordability score makes no sense.

It's good to know that it's probably nonsense. :T

Hi Lucyeff,

When applying for a mortgage/remortgage, the lender will carry out a full affordability assessment - this involves looking at your bank statements etc to determine your income and outgoings.

That means it won't make the same assumptions about your expenditure that Credit Club makes to determine your Credit Card/Personal loan affordability.

Be sure to check out our handy remortgaging guide here: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/remortgage-guide/

I hope this reassures you and explains further the difference here.

ricsto

Following on from previous comments I'd checked my credit card affordability and loan affordability scores yesterday. They were very high and high respectively. I received an email this morning from credit club saying my score had changed. I logged in and can see my Experian Credit Score has not changed but both affordability scores are now poor. No idea why. Suspect a coding error in the way its calculated as my personal circumstances have not changed.

I'm not reading too much into those values.

MSE_Chris

ricsto wrote: »

Following on from previous comments I'd checked my credit card affordability and loan affordability scores yesterday. They were very high and high respectively. I received an email this morning from credit club saying my score had changed. I logged in and can see my Experian Credit Score has not changed but both affordability scores are now poor. No idea why. Suspect a coding error in the way its calculated as my personal circumstances have not changed.

I'm not reading too much into those values.

Hi ricsto,

It's possible that your credit score has updated but has remained the same as the previous month so may just appear to have not updated. You can see the date your scores last updated in the top right corner of the club page.

Here at MSE, we don't have access to your account data so if your affordability scores have gone down, we can't provide the reasoning for this. If you click through to 'Analyse your affordability score', it should provide a breakdown of what's affecting this.

I hope this helps,
MSE Chris