Meaningless Credit Scores - Why are they so different?

Ebe_Scrooge

zzyzx1221 said:

I think the large difference between the scores is because they're making it up as they go along and have all decided on entirely different weighting for different attributes, which bear no resemblance to any actual lenders weightings and are therefore far too generic to offer any real value.

I think you've about hit the nail on the head there.

To reiterate what has been said time and again on this forum, the score given by the CRA is meaningless.  Now, any lender will calculate its own internal score, based on many many criteria, and will basically feed the raw data from the CRA into their algorithms and use the resulting score to decide whether to lend, the maximum amount they're prepared to offer, and what APR to offer.  And, as you rightly point out, each lender will have a different preferred target customer, and will give different weightings to different attributes.  Some will prefer those on high incomes, some will studiously avoid those who already have high debt-to-income ratios, some will have a higher risk appetite and will accept those with less-than-perfect credit histories.  The number of combinations and permutations is enormous, and will be different (and confidential) for every lender.  The very complexity of it dictates that there can not possibly be a single "global" score issued to an individual - hence why the CRA score is as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Tales abound on here of bankrupts with a perfect score.  Even if you don't believe that particular story, a random trawl through recent posts will show many many people asking why they have been declined credit even though they have "a good score".  QED.