ScoreWatch Issues

[Anonymous]

Hey again,

So I've been keeping an eye on my ScoreWatch and haven't had any updates in about a month. Today my company sent an e-mail out saying that they had paid for all of us to get a free Equifax Score Power report. I checked and my score on the Score Power report was different from the score currently showing up on myFICO ScoreWatch. I have my target score set to my current score on myFICO ScoreWatch and haven't gotten an update.

Is there any way to check to make sure my ScoreWatch is active or whatever and that it's actually checking to see if my score has changed? I'm starting to think it might just be better to go with Score Watch from Equifax is myFICO isn't working properly.

[NavyLifter]

I'm extremely interested in this as I have also taking the 30-day free trial offer.  I was intending to renew it monthly after, but with all of the problems that I have heard being reported with ScoreWatch I am not quite sure.  Let me know how it goes!

[Anonymous]

Will-do. I'm nearing my third month of my ScoreWatch subscription. I paid for the annual subscription, so I have it for 12 months and plan on renewing it come renewal time, assuming things start working smoothly.

At first I got several alerts within a week or so. Then I had no alerts for 2 months. After posting on here, Barry gave me a free report and upon pulling my report I noticed a 10 point change. Hoping that things would start working, I just stopped worrying about whether or not I was getting alerts whenever my score changed; I was just happy my score had gone up 10 points!

Then, I recently got a free report and score from Equifax paid for by my employer and I noticed that the score on that report, which came directly from Equifax, was several points off of my current myFICO ScoreWatch score. Basically the set-up for ScoreWatch is excellent and in my opinion it's the product with the best value. The only issue is whether or not it actually does what it says it does. Because essentially you're trusting that it's alerting you to changes to your report and, based on your alert settings, your score as well. It's looking more and more like it's not delivering.

The only reason I'm willing to keep the service though and why I'm not calling up myFICO demanding my $90.00 back is the great service. And Barry is helpful and gives free reports for PROLONGED inactivity with ScoreWatch meaning inactivity > 2 months. Because, if I'm paying on average $8.00/month for this service, after 2 months I've paid $16.00 and really I could have and should have just pulled a full report for that much.

Long story short, I'm hoping they'll work the kinks out and until then I'll keep posting on this forum. But if they don't work them out by the time it's time to renew my subscription, I'm switching to the Equifax version of ScoreWatch. I'm only using myFICO's because I like the format and the fact that it's sort of integrated into a website with a forum, but if the quality here is worse than that of the ScoreWatch product on the Equifax site, I don't see a point in sticking with this one. 

Message Edited by jaybird201 on 11-07-2008 06:19 PM

[NavyLifter]

Does Equifax's service give the actual FICO score as well like myFICO's ScoreWatch or not?

[Anonymous]

Here's what happens, and I'm not 100% of this, so someone correct me if I'm wrong. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are credit bureaus and they put together a bunch of information on consumers that are reported to them by financial institutions, cell phone providers, etc. Fair Isaac is a company that developed the FICO scoring system. Essentially when you pull your FICO score, Fair Isaac scans your credit profile and based on an algorithm, they use all of that information to come up with a score, your FICO score.

...hmm...I just got to thinking and maybe Equifax uses a slightly different formula than the formula used by myFICO when scanning your credit profile. Which may result in a different score.

Now I'm confused. Quick, someone more intelligent than I come rescue me from saying stuff that's 100% wrong.

[llecs]

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NavyLifter wrote:
Does Equifax's service give the actual FICO score as well like myFICO's ScoreWatch or not?

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Exact same score. EQ has an agreement w/ FICO to provide FICO scores only. You can get the same EQ score here as you could with EQ's SW service as you could buying the report and score via EQ itself.

Edit to add...Now EQ offers a 3-in-1 service too. I believe that the score is not a FICO score with that product, but should be FICO everywhere else within EQ.

Message Edited by llecs on 11-08-2008 07:23 AM

[NavyLifter]

Thanks for the response.  I would like to stay with myFICO's SW product at the end of my trial; however, if the reliability of the product doesn't improve soon with what others who have it on here have been saying, I may have to switch over to EQ's SW. 

Hopefully it get's the quirks out soon.

[Lucid08]

Jay,

I'm pretty certain that you have to change your SW "target" to your most recent score in order for the monitoring system to generate an "alert" when it actually changes. I just got mine setup today, and while researching how to set it up, I've read elsewhere that others have had to do this as well.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input guys. When I had problems before, HTSU gave me the pointer to set my target score to my current score and I've been sure to do that whenever/if ever my score changes, which has only been that once.

And thanks llecs, you've confirmed my fears! They're both using the same information, so the score I got from Equifax should be the same as my myFICO ScoreWatch score, which it's clear now isn't updating my score. Sad day. 

[Barry]

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jaybird201 wrote:

Hey again,

So I've been keeping an eye on my ScoreWatch and haven't had any updates in about a month. Today my company sent an e-mail out saying that they had paid for all of us to get a free Equifax Score Power report. I checked and my score on the Score Power report was different from the score currently showing up on myFICO ScoreWatch. I have my target score set to my current score on myFICO ScoreWatch and haven't gotten an update.

Is there any way to check to make sure my ScoreWatch is active or whatever and that it's actually checking to see if my score has changed? I'm starting to think it might just be better to go with Score Watch from Equifax is myFICO isn't working properly.

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Hi jaybird201...Your SW subscription is active and should be alerting you properly. Are you aware that you have a couple of your balance increase alert settings turned off? Your target alert setting is turned on and is set to the last score you received through SW 10/19.

To see if you either should have received a target score alert or are about to, we've added a free report so you can see your most up-to-date EFX score. Pull that ASAP and if your score has changed you should receive an alert within about a week or less. Let us know if your score has changed and you don't get an alert over the next week.