Minimum Scoring Criteria met...or not?

[Anonymous]

First time poster, so let me know if I do/say anything wrong!

I recently tried to apply for a ING Direct Electric Orange account. They check your credit to determine the overdraft protection they'll provide you. I was very surprised to see the application denied because I have either a low or unavailable FICO score.

ING uses Equifax for credit checks. I requested a credit report and FICO score from Equifax, and they're reporting the score as 720. This is lower than it should be (one of my CCs has mysteriously stopped reporting), but I imagine this is still enough to get a checking account! Here's where it gets weird. I requested a score from Equifax through myfico.com, and I get the "minimum scoring criteria" error:

"We regret we are unable to fulfill your Score Power order request because your credit report does not currently contain enough information to meet the minimum scoring criteria required to calculate a FICO® score. In order for a FICO® score to be calculated, a report must contain: At least one account which has been open for six months or more. At least one account that has been updated in the past six months. No indication of deceased on the credit report."

I imagine that ING wasn't able to grab a score for the same reason that myFICO isn't. But what could that reason be? What gives?

For reference I have a $23K limit CC that's about 5 years old. If there's any other information that might give you guys a clue let me know. Thanks!

Message Edited by yogi on 01-03-2008 02:03 PM

[haulingthescoreup]

t's possible that you have a split file, and one portion with very little history on it is what went on the reports that were pulled.

I would say that it's maybe because the $23K card is reporting as installment instead of revolving, but you say that you bought a score from EQ, and EQ sells FICO's, so something was there to generate that 720. Does your score report from EQ have the little gold FICO seal on it?

What accounts does your report list, how old, are they open or closed, etc? Is there anything that you would have expected to be on there that isn't? It should show all open revolving and installment credit, including mortgages, plus any closed accounts that are less than 10 years old.

[andyaycw]

Do you have any other credit accounts in your name? Credit cards, or installment loans such as a mortgage or auto loan?

Assuming that your 5-year old $23k limit credit card is the only type of credit in your name - have you used it recently, as in the past 6 months? If you have used it, are you paying off the balance before the statement cuts, or after?

The card must show activity at least once every six months to keep it active in the FICO scoring model.

If you are using it and letting it report the statement balance, it could be that the creditor is simply not sending updated information to the credit bureaus, in which case you should call and kindly request that they do so.

[Anonymous]

I could look into the split file thing, but I don't understand why EQ would be able to pull a score and not myFICO or ING (since they just request it from EQ, right?).

The CC is reporting as revolving, and it is recent as I use it all the time. The latest balance date on it in the CBR is 12/2007.

Everything in the CBR looks correct, other than the missing CC I had mentioned earlier.

I appreciate your help with this. SmartCookie suggest that there might be some sort of address conflict going on, as the address listed in EQ's CBR doesn't match the CC on the CBR. I think it's a long shot, but I'll have to snail mail EQ and have them update the addresses. I've tried using that address in a myFICO score request, and it still doesn't work. This is really weird.

Message Edited by yogi on 01-04-2008 01:26 PM

[andyaycw]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have a split file, it's possible that Equifax pulled the report that had sufficient information to calculate a score, whereas the one from myfico dot com pulled the one that had insufficient information on it.

[haulingthescoreup]

That was my guess. With a split file, you could come out very, very well indeed, or you could look pretty awful. I remember one member posting that his/her score dropped something like 150 points, then the next day it was up 150, then down 150 again. Each time they were pulling a different fragment to score from.

The bad address could affect things too, if it keeps an account from being scored. (I think that's how that works, not positive, though.)

BTW, it's a good idea to look at all the addresses that are on all three of your reports. When one of our mods finally accepted a killer offer from Discover, he wound up having an inq on two CRA's instead of one, because EX keeps screwing up his address. Discover felt obliged to pull his TU as well to verify his info. He's been battling EX on this for a good long while. Needless to say, he's one of the EX-haters around here!