Paid off mortgage and Experian credit score drops by 96 points!

HeCh

So in that sense they are not randomly generated (and I doubt anyone in here is disputing that).

I'm not so sure jpsatre. I'm not a very frequent poster but read many. Sometimes responses to posters (particularly new ones) that are genuinely concerned about their CRA scores are condescending and embarrassingly factually incorrect or misleading.

Just because we don't know how something is calculated or its significance does not make it random, nonsense, drivel, fictitious, unicorn-based, change of weather dependent etc or any other of the patronising terms used in replies often posted here.

Having said that, I still think these forums are a great place for advice, opinion and information as long as the questioner can separate the wheat from chaff.

[Deleted User]

The scores provide no indication of credit worthiness.

Bankrupts get a 999 score.
People with a 999 score also get declined for £20 per month phone contracts.
On the flip side, those with a 300 score get given £300k+ mortgages.

How is that indicative or credit worthiness?

You also say people with the same information will “get the same score”.

I refer to my point above where bankrupts get 999 scores but also people with mortgages and credit cards galore on their files can also still get a 999 score.

2 very different files but the same “score”.

jpsartre

HeCh wrote: »

I'm not so sure jpsatre. I'm not a very frequent poster but read many. Sometimes responses to posters (particularly new ones) that are genuinely concerned about their CRA scores are condescending and embarrassingly factually incorrect or misleading.

I agree that it is misleading simply to say the score is random since it might suggest to some that the numbers are effectively drawn out of a hat. Better to say that it's a poor indicator of creditworthiness and therefore not particularly relevant.

DCFC79

And your concerned by the drop in points because ?

HeCh

Bankrupts get a 999 score.
People with a 999 score also get declined for £20 per month phone contracts.
On the flip side, those with a 300 score get given £300k+ mortgages.

These are a small sample of extreme examples probably based on anecdotal evidence that do not necessarily reflect the experience of the millions of users of CRA files and scores.

In my experience (and I realise I am just a sample of one!) the general trend of my scores tends to be in reasonable agreement with corresponding changes in my credit files/history.

So, for me, the changes in the scores are reasonably indicative of changes in the potential risk to lenders (ie creditworthiness).

I doubt we will agree and that's fine. Each to their own.

PixelPound

For the OP, you could see your score drop because its a change and then rise in a few months because of the lesser debt, but then again maybe not depending on how many other credit streams you have as if your mortgage was the only one you no longer have any and that panics the CRA algorithm "does not compute"