How much does your actual score matter ?

[Andy77]

So how much does the actual score, just the number matter ?  For instance, if someone has a 700 fico, but their CR shows at one point this person had maxed all their cards and paid them all to zero and they have 8 years of on time payment history, does the content of the report matter more then the score itself ?

I know Chase does not really take into account the score as they have their own...

Do other lenders not really take the score itself into account, is so which lenders/banks ?

[RonM21]

I would think unless someone actually worked for that lender or bank, for the most part, nobody could know the answer for sure. We can take info heard from CSR's, but a lot of times they tend to be misinformed. Other than that, going by trends, or possible denial reasons would be the only way to guess.

I think most lenders actually do look at both.

[Anonymous]

The score comes from the data within the credit report... therefore the score is USUALLY pretty closely indicative of what's found within the report.  While there are different ways to arrive at a 700 score, the overall profile strengths are going to be somewhat similar.  One may be strong in Category A and so-so in Category B, where another person may be so-so in Category A but strong in Category B.  In these situations the subtle differences in creditor decision making may fall on whether they value Category A or B as more meaningful for whatever reason.  That's my opinion.

[NRB525]

---

@Andy77 wrote:

So how much does the actual score, just the number matter ?  For instance, if someone has a 700 fico, but their CR shows at one point this person had maxed all their cards and paid them all to zero and they have 8 years of on time payment history, does the content of the report matter more then the score itself ?

I know Chase does not really take into account the score as they have their own...

Do other lenders not really take the score itself into account, is so which lenders/banks ?

---

Your score matters because it is a summary of the particular mix of factors in your credit profile. Each of the factors in your profile; age of accounts, whether there are any late payments, BK, or all on time, percentage utilization, matters to a different degree. You as a member of a large population of persons using credit have a certain possibility of defaulting on your credit obligations. Your actual payment history is the only available information the credit rating groups have available, they cannot look into your mind to determine your willingness to pay, so they have to rely on your historical payment patterns to do some calculations of probability of default.. This is why a single late payment is such a large hit to the score: With that late payment, the cardholder has broken the trust of the lenders that they willl be paid back. The cost of borrowing tends to rise when a late payment is noted.

The internal models that Chase and other lenders use are really a variation on the calculations by FICO and other scoring models. There's very little difference in the concept of using past payment history to predict likely future payment history, just a variation in the weight given to each factor and the resulting score ranges.