Experian and ClearScore ratings inexplicably dropping!

Camran

Hi Money Savers.  I hope someone who is more knowledgeable in the field of credit rating may be able to help me here.  I've always kept an eye on my Experian score, usually once per year, and for many years I had a perfect score of 999 or thereabouts.  I lived at home until my late 20s, never had any debt and always paid off credit card bills monthly; I grew to expect a high score.  However, now that I am in a position to be considering taking out a mortgage in the near future I've noticed that my Experian score has dropped to 839, which encouraged me to check my score on ClearScore, a measly 502 out of 1000.  I still haven't accumulated any debt, have modest but decent savings and still always pay off my credit card bill every month.  I have no idea what's caused my credit score to start falling. At first I assumed a provider may have an erroneous o/s payment on their record, but I requested an Experian statutory credit report, which showed this not to be the case. I have moved address 4 times in the past 5 years, is this something which creditors may view as unfavorable?  I also note that Experian shows no credit cards recorded against my name, which is incorrect.  ClearScore shows I'm 'doing well' under all their 'insights', so nothing to explain the poor score there.  Does anyone have any tips on where I can look to determine why my score has started falling? Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

kaMelo

Ignore the scores, they are what the CRA think they should be but until they become a lender they're irrelevant as only you and they can see your made up score. Check all the data within the credit file, any change is usually viewed negatively by them so look for changes or incorrect information.
If you have a history of using credit wisely, always paying on time, on the electoral register then don't worry about the made up score, the data is much more important.

[Deleted User]

As above, the scores have no relevance to anything. Lenders will be looking at your credit files and what's on them.

If Experian are not reporting any credit card, then its because your card don't report to Experian. Thin files make you higher risk to a lender, so that may be something you want to address.

K_S

@camran As the posters above have mentioned, the scores themselves don't really have any impact on your mortgage options. Each lender will do their own 'credit-scoring' based on what is in your report (generally speaking, they will rely on either Experian or Equifax), your financial circumstances, the mortgage requirements and other details in the application.

With respect to a mainstream mortgage, the most important aspects re your credit report are - that you have some history (even a 3+ year old current account will serve that purpose), that you don't have any recent adverse markers (late payments, arrears, etc.) on it, no recent pay-day loans on them, the addresses are up to date, you are registered on the electoral roll at the current address (not a huge deal if it hasn't updated yet as it can sometimes take a good few months to show).

Camran

Thank you for your replies, these are reassuring. Odd that Experian etc don't always provide scores to match the data, but provided lenders refer to the data rather than the score then I guess that's all that matters...

[Deleted User]

Camran said:

Thank you for your replies, these are reassuring. Odd that Experian etc don't always provide scores to match the data, but provided lenders refer to the data rather than the score then I guess that's all that matters...

The score they provide matches what they think lenders rate you as but their primary role is to provide the data for lenders to use to score you using their own scoring systems - hence why the score is nothing more than a gimmick