Experian vs MSE Credit Club

AimHigh

Is anyone able to explain why I have two different credit scores on Experian vs MSE Credit Club (which apparently uses Experian) please?

My Experian score is significantly lower and claims that I have 1 negative influence on my report despite the fact that I've literally never missed a single payment or had any disputes over debt etc - I pay any credit cards off in full every month and actually overpaid previous loans so don't think I can have a legitimate black mark on my report. I can understand why it may have dropped a few points seeing as I don't currently have many bills etc in my name but I don't understand how it can possibly have dropped so far. I did previously do one of those report merges based on different variations of my name so I don't think that's caused it.

Credit Club shows a completely different (and far more positive) score so I'm wondering whether Experian are just trying to force me to pay the £15 for the sake of it?

I recently got a new credit card and that went through with no problems at all so I'm assuming my overall score is actually fine but it does worry me as I'll be moving house soon and that'll require a credit check. (Note: the above was still true prior to applying for the new cc).

Many thanks in advance,
AH

[Deleted User]

Don't pay for any CRA service, they are worthless and mean nothing, you can get everything for free on the credit club

AimHigh

Deleted_User said:

Don't pay for any CRA service, they are worthless and mean nothing, you can get everything for free on the credit club

That's the view I've taken but how can the credit club be correct when the service it's claiming to use says something completely different?

[Deleted User]

The information used is the same, as MSE takes the data from Experian. Any difference in the pretend scores is irrelevant, as is the guidance to negative factors.

Just check that the data you see is correct.

Bridlington1

Credit Club and the free version of Experian updates your score once a month. As it's unlikely they will both update your score on the same day you will probably have different scores for each as one will be more out of date than the other.

AimHigh

Deleted_User said:

The information used is the same, as MSE takes the data from Experian. Any difference in the pretend scores is irrelevant, as is the guidance to negative factors.

Just check that the data you see is correct.

Ok thanks for the info.

Out of interest, I've always understood from these forums that lenders don't even look at these credit scores but an acquaintance who works in mortgages told me that they do - hopefully that's just my misunderstanding and they look at credit reports but not these arbitrary scores?

AimHigh

Bridlington1 said:

Credit Club and the free version of Experian updates your score once a month. As it's unlikely they will both update your score on the same day you will probably have different scores for each as one will be more out of date than the other.

Appreciate the suggestion, I did think the same but it's been like this for the last couple of months so not sure that's the cause!

[Deleted User]

They look at the reports, not the scores. However, lender will generate scores internally from the data (and some of the smaller providers will give their criteria to a CRA for them to produce a score for them), which is where people get confused with credit scores in general.

AimHigh

Deleted_User said:

They look at the reports, not the scores. However, lender will generate scores internally from the data (and some of the smaller providers will give their criteria to a CRA for them to produce a score for them), which is where people get confused with credit scores in general.

Great, understood. Thanks for the info/explanation!