The final, definitive test of whether Score Watch actually works

[Anonymous]

Well, Score Watch alerted me yesterday (Friday) that my score is now up to 759. It does appear to be working as per expectation. It's comical that my score stopped 1 point short of being in the next higher mortgage rate bracket, but I'm still hoping it has a little more growth left in it. Maybe by next month the progression of time will have pushed me to 760. I did reset my alert threshold to 759, so we'll see if/when that happens.

At this point, I would say I'm satisfied that Score Watch is doing what myFICO says it does. I do wish they would allow me to specify that I want to be alerted for *any* change in my credit score, so that I wouldn't have to keep manually resetting my alert threshold to my latest score.

Anyway, I think myFICO could do a better job of explaining exactly what people can expect from this product. Credit reports are not really maintained or updated in real time; I think that's a misperception that causes a lot of people to expect the impossible from Score Watch. The reality is that there's a significant time lag between when significant credit-related events occur and when they show up in a person's credit report. So, Score Watch works as well as can be expected, given the limitations of the underlying credit reporting system.

[bigtim]

Does Scorewatch work? Well, I've had 19 alerts since I've signed up in mid July or so. Works for me as advertised.

Congrats whits on a nice score jump...

[Anonymous]

This is strange. Score Watch alerted me today that my credit score decreased from 759 to 717. There was no alertable change on my credit report; it was just a score change that caused the alert.

Score Watch says it could be due to one of the following reasons:
• "You have a short credit history." – Well, that wouldn't be any shorter than it was a week ago.
• "You have too many credit cards carrying balances." – All of my cards are still at zero balance.
• "The amount owed on your revolving accounts is too high." – It's all zero.

So what the crap happened? I could burn my remaining Score Power credit to maybe find out, but I'd rather hold onto that to use at the end of my experiment.

Edit: Furthermore, if one of my balances DID increase, that would have caused an alertable change in my credit report. But Score Watch says there was no such change in my credit report. So I am really befuddled.

Message Edited by whitslack on 01-04-2010 02:34 AM

[llecs]

I'd pull your EQ report from somewhere (doesn't have to necessarily be from myFICO). Look for obvious changes that maybe didn't trigger an alert like a dropped account or change in balances & CLs.

[Anonymous]

Did you ever find out why your score dropped back down so much?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Did you ever find out why your score dropped back down so much?

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Nope, but it just jumped back up to 753 today. And my CreditCheck Total account became fully active, so I was able to run another 3-bureau credit report there "for free." Chase is still dragging their heels about reporting my zero balances. Everyone else (AmEx, Discover, Citi) has reported zero. One of my three Chase cards is now showing zero, but the other two are still showing balances, one of which is over $800. I'm still hoping to get to that all-important 760 score before I apply for my mortgage.

[Anonymous]

I ran another 3-bureau report at CreditCheck Total today, and it showed all of my balances at zero except a $23 balance at Chase and a $5 balance at Citi (only on TU), but I figured that's good enough. So I came on over here to myFICO and burned my remaining Score Power. Indeed, it now shows I have $23 debt outstanding, and running the Score Power updated my FICO score to 765. Ding! I submitted my mortgage application today. Everyone wish me luck!
:-)

[lots_of_baddies]

I signed for the SW service last October and had never received an alert, I paid the  full year and I think it was a waste of money....just my 2 cts here...

[StarraeAday1]

Yeah, that happens pretty frequently around here when people don't know how to configure their settings, or don't know what actually triggers a ScoreWatch alert. Have you read the thread at the top of this forum to familiarize yourself with ScoreWatch? I've had it for months now and have never had a problem.