topic Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0 in Credit Cards

WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:42:32 GMT

I may not be as well known on this board as some, but I have been frequenting this forum for some time now and the info I have received has been incredibly helpful.

During my reading of various threads, I have often come across peoples frustration (myself included) with www.whogavemecredit.com, such as outdated info, sort order, page length, and many other items. I even remember one thread where someone commented that another member expressed interest in creating a newer, more updated, more sophisticated version, which was (from what I can tell) never completed. Don't get me wrong, WGMC has been very helpful to many of us, and provides some interesting data, but it needs to be updated to 2008.

As a thank you to all of the wonderful contributions of the members of this forum, plus the fact that I would find the data extremely helpful myself, I would like to begin work on designing an updated database full of current data, a new look, and advanced tools that are currently sorely missing.

I have begun compiling a list of my own requirements that I believe are necessary for such a database (including sorting, advanced search, data export, reports, and approval rate charts), but I would interested (and very much appreciative) of any and all suggestions that the members of this forum can provide (including a possible name!).

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:23:35 GMT

Just set up a web server with a PHP front end on Apache hooked up to a relational DB backend like PostGres or MySQL.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:37:03 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Just set up a web server with a PHP front end on Apache hooked up to a relational DB backend like PostGres or MySQL.

Thanks for the reply. What I'm actually looking more for is input on functional requirements such as those that I listed.

I actually work as a software engineer and contribute to many open source projects, so I'm aware of the stack that you've recommended and plan on using it for this project. If you'd like to help out, I'd be happy to source control the code I write and make it available.

So, if anyone has some features that they WISH WGMC had, post it to this thread and we can discuss it and begin to hash out the specifics.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:50:31 GMT

I think you could start by listing what's wrong with WGMC 1.0:

--No ability to sort the results by column once the search is complete

--No ability to use any sort of excludes, e.g. give me everyone who has a 'No' for Approval

--You can only search only four fields (state, score, name, comments), even though the results table has 11-12 columns

--No Boolean operators from what I can tell

--The Credit Sticklers category appears to be as meaningless as it is inaccurate (e.g. I wouldn't call US Bank a stickler if it is granting cards to people with 650 FICO like it says). Instead, I'd have the database display the top 5-10 highest minimum approval scores and, at the other end, the cards with the lowest 5-10 minimum approval scores.

--Eliminate the Comments field. It's just useless.

Message Edited by watchnerd on 03-27-2008 06:50 PM

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:01:11 GMT

It also needs other info such as current util...number of total account mix etc. It would be great if the info was more a "snap shot" of the applicants credit picture at the time the account was opened. This gives the search a more relevant comparison. May be an idea for the contributor to have a profile that can be updated.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:02:40 GMT

watchnerd wrote:

--Eliminate the Comments field. It's just useless.

I agree with most of your list, but I highly disagree with this assessment of the comments field. The comments field is, in fact, vital to getting an understanding of WHY someone was denied, or even more importantly, what sort of baddies the given creditor is willing to overlook for approval.

In a perfect world, each entry would be able to provide a snapshot/breakdown of the vital statistics of the report in question.

If I see, for example, that a creditor has denied someone with a 760, but approved someone with a 640, what am I supposed to do with that information if I have a 700 and want to apply? That information does me absolutely no good by itself. I need to know why the 760 was denied so I can know whether those particular grounds for denial apply to me. That's what the comments field is for. One of the most frustrating aspects of WGMC for me is when users DON'T fill out the comments field, because we are left guessing again.

The other part of WGMC that I find frustrating is the fact that there are three FICO fields for each entry, one for each CRA, but there is nowhere to indicate which CRA the creditor actually pulled. When someone only enters one score, it is obvious which CRA was pulled. If, on the other hand, as is quite common, the user enters data in all three fields, how am I supposed to know which one is relevant to the app in question?

Rant complete.

Message Edited by cheddar on 03-27-2008 10:02 PM

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:07:51 GMT

I agree with cheddar. I find the comments field most useful. It gives insight into that person's particular situation on that particular card.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:35:14 GMT

This is great information. I wholeheartedly agree with the comments field being both advantageous, yet useless at times. I think part of this has to do with the design, and can easily be fixed. Rather than a free-text area where the user is able to input "other" information (which is often good, but sometimes completely worthless), I'm thinking something along the lines of Contributing Factors section that they can select from a predefined list of common factors, as well as an Other section that allows them to fill in details that aren't found on the list. If anyone has other recommendations, please let me know.

Also, creating a method of designating which CRA was pulled is absolutely mandatory--this is, in fact, one of my biggest gripes about WGMC.

I also like the idea of being able to generate a "snapshot" of the users credit at the time of application--what information would be important, yet benign enough that people would feel comfortable sharing it? A lot of this goes into what I was envisioning the Advanced Search would be. We want to be able to collect as much data from the user at the time they applied for a given card, but we don't necessarily need to show all of the info on one screen. Ideally, users would be able to enter their current information into a search and then select an option that dictates how strict the search should be when returning matches. For example, a loose search might just look at credit score, whereas a strict search would also compare against items in the Contributing Factors list, such as BK's, number/age of accounts, etc.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:38:17 GMT

I agree with Cheddar as well. I however think the comments section should be enough. If you have people fill out tons of mandatory info, it'll be a turn off. Maybe something like yes/no for CO's, Collections, BKs, etc. Nothing too long or personal

I'd like to be able to sort by date/score as well, it'd be nice. WGMC is a good site for a guideline, no site will ever be perfect, I'd definitely say remaking it would probably be more effort than it's worth though lol

Message Edited by modernsurrender on 03-27-2008 09:38 PM

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:42:22 GMT

Personally I would like to see a sort by CRA, subsorted by state, or vice versa, listing the cc it applies to.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:43:26 GMT

If all contributors kept a profile "credit snapshot" one could do a loose search and then click to the contributors profile also...just a thought!

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:59:05 GMT

brian77 wrote:
I also like the idea of being able to generate a "snapshot" of the users credit at the time of application--what information would be important, yet benign enough that people would feel comfortable sharing it?

Given the amount of somewhat personal financial information people share on this forum, I wouldn't imagine there would be much of a problem with people being comfortable sharing their credit profile informaton in an anonymous system like you're describing. I think the difficulty with that idea would be that people won't want to go to all that trouble just to make an entry.

"What? Who cares what my average age of accounts is, all I'm trying to do is tell everyone that 620 is all you need to get an Amex....ANY Amex!"

Of course, it's much more complicated than that, but you can't assume that your users will know that. That's unfortunate, and honestly, it's why I rely mostly on the relatively in-depth dicussions here on this forum when I'm trying to decide whether I would qualify for a particular card.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:02:05 GMT

Agree cheddar,

But would be nice for the benefit of this fourm...

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:16:18 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
What? Who cares what my average age of accounts is, all I'm trying to do is tell everyone that 620 is all you need to get an Amex....ANY Amex!

I agree, Cheddar, but some people might like to be able to refine the list down from say 1000+ results to something more manageable like the 20 closest. Fields, like age of accounts, would be optional, and strictly for producing more granular results. If someone simply wants to search by score, they can certainly do that too.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:27:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:
What? Who cares what my average age of accounts is, all I'm trying to do is tell everyone that 620 is all you need to get an Amex....ANY Amex!

I agree, Cheddar, but some people might like to be able to refine the list down from say 1000+ results to something more manageable like the 20 closest. Fields, like age of accounts, would be optional, and strictly for producing more granular results. If someone simply wants to search by score, they can certainly do that too.

OK, I see. But then we're back to where we started. If those fields are optional, how will this be better than WGMC?

BTW, you do understand that the part of my post you quoted above wasn't actually ME speaking as MYSELF, right?

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:31:42 GMT

I also work as a software engineer. I have worked in the open source industry for 4 years now. I mainly deal with C++ and application development, but I'd love to help out with this project if any part of it matches my skillset.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:32:49 GMT

I'm also a software engineer BTW, but a good deal of what I do is write use cases. This is why I've been trying to get you to think of this project from that perspective.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:34:04 GMT

Are you a UI developer?

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:44:42 GMT

Ooops. Cheddar, I totally didn't catch the third person voice in your earlier message.

@Anonymous wrote:
I'm also a software engineer BTW, but a good deal of what I do is write use cases. This is why I've been trying to get you to think of this project from that perspective.

Use cases are certainly going to be valuable during the design and test phases, so I definitely appreciate your input.

Re: WhoGaveMeCredit 2.0

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:48:53 GMT

FretlessMayhem wrote:
Are you a UI developer?

The nature of my work typically involves me developing the whole shebang, including DB design, UI design and development, object models, coding, dev documentation, etc etc. In spite of that, I'm also expected to work with account managers to write use cases for QA to use once my projects reach them.

Message Edited by cheddar on 03-28-2008 12:48 AM