JudiB wrote:
haulingthescoreup wrote: Experian is laughing all the way to the bank with the deposit receipts from the sales of their FAKO scores.
The bureaus make most of their $$$ buy selling scores to the lenders --Chase and the gang. I think we're pretty small beer.
Which reminds me, it's important to always remember that we are not the CRA's customers. The banks are.
But that's precisely my point! Where's the CONSUMER PROTECTION part of this equation? Not necessarily that the BUREAUS need to be protecting the consumer, but that SOMEONE should. I'm a Realtor...if a consumer is getting a home loan and has scores and financial profile that would legitimately qualify them for a given rate, but BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING WHAT THEIR REAL SCORES ARE they are charged .5% (or more!) higher, it'll cost them thou$ands more over the life of the loan. And MOST consumers are not likely to have every lender or every car dealer pull their credit when they are shopping because they know that multiple inquiries can lower their score (those I've spoken with don't want to risk "trusing" that those will be clustered in scoring as part of a shopping process for a single item).
Consumers have a right to know what their FICO scores are....and someone should be insuring that they have the ability to exercise that right. "Credit Score" and "FICO" are synonymous to most consumers, and at this point I suspect the majority of folks pulling their credit on the 3 bureaus HAVE NO CLUE they are not getting their FICO. I only knew it when I pulled them this weekend at TU and saw they were considerably higher than I expected...and figured SOMETHINGS WRONG HERE!
I know CRAs pulled out of using FICO on their own sites (and affiliate/sister sites) because they did not want to pay Fair Isaac royalties every time a consumer pulled their own score. But, particularly on the TU, EX, and EQ sites themselves, as long as consumers have been able to pull their own credit scores at all, they were always getting their FICO credit scores. They are no doubt on an aggressive campaign to seduce lenders away from FICO to make their own system the "scoring of choice". I guess I'm just surprised that more isn't being done, wile I'm sure Fair Isaac is fighting them, to make sure that the public knows they're not getting their "real" scores.
As for the highlighted section above, mortgages are the one area where consumers do know our scores. As you know, with a mortgage app the lender is required to provide all three scores and reports, including the name of the score version used. And if the consumer has to app multiple times, s/he will be provided the scores each time. And this is because it is required by law.
At first, many of us thought that the new Dodd-Frank law (effective in January) would require that consumers be provided their score and negative factors if they didn't qualify for the best deal on any credit application, so CC's and auto loans, etc. But either we were all victims of a mass delusion, or this was quietly watered down. Now it looks like they don't have to provide the score, just "information."
The CRA's have to pay FICO whenever a FICO score is sold, whether from their own site or from myFICO. So they weren't saving royalties by reducing consumer access to FICO scores. Again, my belief is that they want to promote their own various versions of FAKO's, and as you say, consumers have no clue that they're pulling a mostly useless score.
* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007
Or decide to pay far too much in mortgage interest. But they do have the power to stop at that point, yes? Isn't that what pre-qualifying is all about?