Credit Score Alert - Details... explanation?

[prine06]

I received an alert that my credit score went down.. the details say '" New Interest Rate on A 48 Month Auto Loan" ... I haven't applied for any auto loans... Is this possible fraud or am I misunderstanding the alert?

[Anonymous]

Do you have an existing auto loan?

[prine06]

I do have an existing 48 month loan... but it has fixed interest... and the reported interest rate is much higher than the one I have now.

[Anonymous]

Call your lender and confirm any changes, ez pz.

[iv]

---

@prine06 wrote:

I received an alert that my credit score went down.. the details say '" New Interest Rate on A 48 Month Auto Loan" ... I haven't applied for any auto loans... Is this possible fraud or am I misunderstanding the alert?

---

You're misunderstanding the alert... but it's not just you - the way they present those notes seems to confuse people every day.

Your score was updated due to a triggering event (balance change, etc).

MyFICO then interpreted the change in score as one that crossed a possible tier threshold for an auto loan, and reported the (possible) results if you were to apply for said loan today, with that score.

It's not related to your existing loan's rate, it's not a new loan appearing, and it's not fraud.

It's just MyFICO alerting being unnecessarily confusing.

[takeshi74]

---

@prine06 wrote:

I received an alert that my credit score went down.. the details say '" New Interest Rate on A 48 Month Auto Loan" ... I haven't applied for any auto loans... Is this possible fraud or am I misunderstanding the alert?

---

myFICO's monitoring is trigger based.  If you're using it then make sure you understand the triggers.

http://myfico.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/463/~/understanding-what-triggers-fico%C2%AE-3-bu...

Not all activity with a scoring impact is a trigger so you cannot rely on the alerts alone to detemine the cause(s) of a scoring change.  To do so you have to carefully compare reports from before and after the change.