credit scores

wez130

wez130

wez130

Soldato
Joined
31 Jan 2004
Posts
11,308
Location
Matakana New Zealand
I'm confused. I've used both noddle and clearscore to check my credit record, with clearscore i have a good record - which i'd expect, i have never missed or paid a payment late, i'm not overusing my available credit (credit card is paid off and i don't use my next credit account which is £5k) I've had a £3k overdraft facility on my bank account which i've never gone into, had no problems financing my car with BMW finance. Infact, my car is the only real finance i have atm. I earn a decent wage too. However, with noddle, my credit score is 1/5 :confused:

I applied for the credit facility on paypal yesterday as it offers 4 months interest free on purchases of £150 or more, which i thought would be handy, yet i got refused credit. On digging deeper, they use callcredit as their credit reference agency, which unless i'm mistaken, noddle uses to check my score too. However, Noddle seem to have a few of my details wrong, my address was my old one from 3 years ago, and they still have me on the electoral register there, even though i registered on my current address when i moved in over a year ago.

How do i go about sorting this out as i feel a bit gutted that i've been turned down for a credit facility, yet i had no issue taking £18k of car finance, or any other finance for that matter.
 
Have you checked to see if you are on the register.
What does it say about your financial accounts, are they all at your new address. That's a big one, they really hate accounts split across multiple addresses.

Also having lots of credit available is a negative. As it's available to you.
 
I am on the register at my current address with clearscore (Equifax), but my old address with noddle (callcredit). my 'score' on noddle is 550 which is between very poor and poor, which i find VERY strange, that's surely a score that people with CCJ's and heaps of late payments would have.
 
thebennyboy said:
Credit scores mean bugger all, every company that runs a credit check will have their own scoring criteria.
Click to expand...

This.

I checked my Experian score with Barclaycard (free to do), and got 933 which is very amusing given my income at the moment.

Credit scores are basically a nonsense as there is no standard and most of the companies offering to tell you it have no details about your financial circumstances other than things like "oh you've hard a credit card for 10 years at that address and pay it off every month".
 
thebennyboy said:
Credit scores mean bugger all, every company that runs a credit check will have their own scoring criteria.
Click to expand...

Yes they will and often part of it will be based on your credit score from a 3rd party provider. Whilst a bad credit score does not mean no credit, you can be stopped and will be stopped by many lenders if your risk profile is bad and your score forms part of that. Some companies elevate it, some don't, but let's stop with the 'credit score means bugger all' because that is false.
 
Except creditors don't see the score generated by the credit agencies so how can it have any determination on his ability to gain credit?

It's more than likely with 5K available on Next, a credit card, a large overdraft and 18k worth of car finance that they believe he's over stretched.

That's a lot of debt/available credit unless he's earning 6 figures..
 
Housey said:
Yes they will and often part of it will be based on your credit score from a 3rd party provider. Whilst a bad credit score does not mean no credit, you can be stopped and will be stopped by many lenders if your risk profile is bad and your score forms part of that. Some companies elevate it, some don't, but let's stop with the 'credit score means bugger all' because that is false.
Click to expand...

It means "bugger all" in any sort of useful/practical sense.

Since you (the person applying for credit) has no clue about a particular lender's criteria, it's entirely useless knowing your credit "score".

E.g. one lender might want people with a low score because they can make more money from them in interest, another might want people with a high score because it's safer for them.

However the weighting they put on that score is also "a mystery". E.g. the lender wanting people with a high score may only actually take it into account based on other factors (e.g. if your income is higher than a certain level then they may just ignore it, or if you have a very high availability of existing credit, but low utilisation, then they may decline you even if your score is "perfect").

OP, my score is similar, 2/5 with Noddle, but in the 800s with Experian.
 
Last edited:
Broken Hope said:
Except creditors don't see the score generated by the credit agencies so how can it have any determination on his ability to gain credit?

It's more than likely with 5K available on Next, a credit card, a large overdraft and 18k worth of car finance that they believe he's over stretched.

That's a lot of debt/available credit unless he's earning 6 figures..
Click to expand...

Most creditors will use data held by one of the 3 credit rating agencies and use it as part of their decision making process. How important it is varies hugely, but the companies who provide this information were doing so for years before they started selling it on to the like of Jo Public.
 
Housey said:
Yes they will and often part of it will be based on your credit score from a 3rd party provider. Whilst a bad credit score does not mean no credit, you can be stopped and will be stopped by many lenders if your risk profile is bad and your score forms part of that. Some companies elevate it, some don't, but let's stop with the 'credit score means bugger all' because that is false.
Click to expand...

I've always been told that the scores that most of the sites give you are useless, i thought the company running the check could only see certain information and wouldn't be given a "credit score" by the credit reference agency. Happy to be proven wrong though.
 
Broken Hope said:
Except creditors don't see the score generated by the credit agencies so how can it have any determination on his ability to gain credit?

It's more than likely with 5K available on Next, a credit card, a large overdraft and 18k worth of car finance that they believe he's over stretched.

That's a lot of debt/available credit unless he's earning 6 figures..
Click to expand...

The very fact i'm not using my available credit shows i am well in control of my finances. My only debt is my car which isn't exactly stretching me. Far from it infact.
 
thebennyboy said:
I've always been told that the scores that most of the sites give you are useless, i thought the company running the check could only see certain information and wouldn't be given a "credit score" for the credit reference agency. Happy to be proven wrong though.
Click to expand...

this is true.

However, the fact that callcredit have said my credit is crap is annoying, when the search done by experian / equifax would have told the lender otherwise. Surely there should be some common ground between the three companies.
 
wez130 said:
The very fact i'm not using my available credit shows i am well in control of my finances. My only debt is my car which isn't exactly stretching me. Far from it infact.
Click to expand...

However it does also mean you could suddenly decide to max out that £5k + £3k, putting you another £8k in debt!
 
thebennyboy said:
I've always been told that the scores that most of the sites give you are useless, i thought the company running the check could only see certain information and wouldn't be given a "credit score" by the credit reference agency. Happy to be proven wrong though.
Click to expand...

Let me be clear. No major organisation will seek your score and make a decision off the back of that. ALL significant lenders providing credit will reference 1 maybe 2 agencies for a broader perspective on your lending habits. So if you go to a lender who uses Experian for example and you can easily find out which lenders use which agencies, knowing where you sit is useful as a really bad score or worse, wrong information can impact the decision. It will not be the basis of a decision, but it WILL form part of your risk profile.

I made a point in a previous thread about owning your credit score. This was not about worrying to much about what it was, but more about ensuring the data is accurate. I had massive problems with my Bank previously because of duff information held by them and 1 credit agency relating to my electoral register position and houses owned. So to my point, it does not mean bugger all, it has an impact.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom