topic Re: Equifax Three-card Monte in General Credit Topics

Equifax Three-card Monte

pipeguy — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:39:12 GMT

A week or so ago I posted a thread on why I hate Equifax (1-23-12) which gives a partial history of my Equifax dealings over the last year, it gets worse. Today I was notified by SW that my Equifax score is now 632, as opposed to TU 698 (FICO pull 12/2011) and EX 767 (lender pull 11/2011).

Bit of back ground (just a little), purchased a new/used car in July 2011 - $16,300 loan with an Equifax score of 689. In September I opened an Amazon Store card ($1600 instant approval) and in November I opened a Dell credit line ($3000 instant approval) which is listed as Citi/DFS on my credit report. The DFS lender pull said Experian with a score of 767 (seemed high, but I didn't care).

I have 2 different 30 day lates from May 2009 on two different installment loans, both accounts are paid in full early. I sent a GW to the lender CEO (it’s a major Credit Union), he politely said thank you for being a member for 38 years with no other marks on your record, but go pound sand. These are not new lates, nothing has changed in the last 3 years, everything is paid on time or early and my utilization is 6-7% with most accounts PIF every month, other than the car loan of course.

Over the last year I have filed a bunch of “disputes” with Equifax to correct several errors on my credit report, such as an account that was not mine (see 1-23-12 post), incorrect credit line amounts, incorrect balances of a Lowes account (has not been updated since 10/11 on EQ, but it has on TU and EX). Again, there are NO new lates, unpaid, past due, etc just “requests” to correct errors in their reporting.

I understand that I have several new accounts (Car loan, Amazon, Dell) and that there are additional inquiries because of these new accounts, but 689 to 632 in 6 months with larger credit lines, no lates, almost everything PIF every month and I go from prime to sub-prime on Equifax because I question their reporting?

Today I placed a security lock on my Equifax account. I’m not planning on opening any new accounts in 2012, but at least if I do they’ll have to see my true credit history and not the three-card Monte BS that Equifax is reporting. Too bad myFICO uses Equifax as their Score Watch model, because as far as I’m concerned Equifax is worthless.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

Booner72 — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:35:54 GMT

I hate them the most. EX is my highest, and TU is good about deleting via HIPAA. EQ SUCKS!

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

AndySoCal — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:05:49 GMT

Keep in mind the opening of new accounts like the credit cards and the car loan all impact the score. The credit cards affect your average age of account and your utilization. The inquiries for the car loan made with in 30 days will be treated as one inquiry. The higher credit limits only help your utilization in the FICO score calculation. You do not get more points just because of the amount of a credit limit. FICO makes a difference between bankcards and non bankcards cards in the calculation . I have never seen anything in writing with source to FICO about subprime and prime cards affecting the calculaiton. I could name several lenders that have both cards like Capital One. The Venture and Capital one cash cards would be considered prime. The rebuilder MC would not be considered prime. FICO cannot tell from the data it receives from the bureau which it is. The points lost due the new accounts and inquires will come back in time. I say this as reminder and I hope it helps.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

pipeguy — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:24:51 GMT

From November 12th through January 17th my EQ was 677, which I assume the new accounts and inquiries accounted for the drop from the July "high" score. That said, and I outlined some of this in my 1-23-12 post, nothing has changed other than Equifax dropped 21 accounts from my report (all positive older accounts, none 10 years old, some only 4-5). My EQ file shows 19 accounts, I have 10 open accounts, the car note which is paid 2 months in advance and 1 accounts with a balance of $582 on a $2100 credit line, 8 others are $00.00.

No additional lates, no additional inquires, no collections, etc.... yet my score has dropped to 637 and now 632 since January 18th. Note that my Trans Union score (43 tradelines) has not dropped and I see no change in my Experian file (41 tradelines). I'm sick of playing the game that changes daily with Equifax. As far as I'm concerned I'll keep it blocked forever. I have enough credit and I don't care about limit increases, etc to continue to worry about what game Equifax is playing.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:10:07 GMT

@pipeguy wrote:
From November 12th through January 17th my EQ was 677, which I assume the new accounts and inquiries accounted for the drop from the July "high" score. That said, and I outlined some of this in my 1-23-12 post, nothing has changed other than Equifax dropped 21 accounts from my report (all positive older accounts, none 10 years old, some only 4-5). My EQ file shows 19 accounts, I have 10 open accounts, the car note which is paid 2 months in advance and 1 accounts with a balance of $582 on a $2100 credit line, 8 others are $00.00.

No additional lates, no additional inquires, no collections, etc.... yet my score has dropped to 637 and now 632 since January 18th. Note that my Trans Union score (43 tradelines) has not dropped and I see no change in my Experian file (41 tradelines). I'm sick of playing the game that changes daily with Equifax. As far as I'm concerned I'll keep it blocked forever. I have enough credit and I don't care about limit increases, etc to continue to worry about what game Equifax is playing.

Pipeguy - This may very well be the reason for the drop in score. It has probably affected your Average Age of Accounts and may have affected your Oldest Account Age. None of us is privy to the FICO scoring algorithms but we do know that these are factors in the scoring. What weight these factors have is unknown, but it might be what makes the difference.

That being said, there will be no way to get old deleted and closed accounts to re-report, so Time and a continued good payment history will take care of it.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

wednesdayaddamsd — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:30:12 GMT

Me three. I HATE Equifax!

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

Imhotrodcrazy — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:18:55 GMT

I just got off the phone with EQ about 20 minutes ago with similar problems. I have tried in vain to get these people to correct "their" mistakes on my report, but it's like talking to a wall. Either they don't understand or just don't care. This is why my EQ score is the lowest of the three. I will not buy another EQ fico score/report because of the errors created by them, which in turn equates to just another FAKO score as far as I am concerned.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

my25reasons — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:17:46 GMT

Funny I should find this post now. I just got done posting a rant about them as well.

Can I fire Equifax?

02-03-2012 11:10 AM

Seriously. Can we just boot them to the curb entirely? I always have nothing but problems with them.

They never report anything accurately, and when I call them, I can't understand a word they say. I was speaking to one rep who was asking me if I "have a middle initial" and honest to god, all I could hear back was "do you have a needle on the shelf?". I was getting SO frustrated! He litteraly had to ask me 10 times before I could understand him.

Not to mention how RUDE their representatives are! Before the last rep, I was speaking with another girl who literally MOCKED me. She says "well ma'am, you keep saying (whatever it was that i was saying)", only she said it to me like my 11 year old daughter would when she's being sassy. I asked the lady if she was serious and if I could speak with a supervisor, and SHE HUNG UP ON ME!!

Oh, heaven help me before I resort to just banging my head on my desk.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

my25reasons — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:19:51 GMT

@Imhotrodcrazy wrote:
I just got off the phone with EQ about 20 minutes ago with similar problems. I have tried in vain to get these people to correct "their" mistakes on my report, but it's like talking to a wall. Either they don't understand or just don't care. This is why my EQ score is the lowest of the three. I will not buy another EQ fico score because of the errors created by them, which in turn equates to just another FAKO score as far as I am concerned.

They don't care!! Nothing is their fault! Never mind that the other two cra's got it right! It's always the fault of whoever the account is with! As if these accounts just go in and add their own comments and mark an account as paid in full BUT LEAVE IT OPEN WITH A MONTHLY PAYMENT!! Funny how these accounts reflect accurately everywhere else!!

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

pipeguy — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:07:48 GMT

So its not just me? I was starting to be paranoid..... Guess misery loves company but I really don't take any comfort in the fact that Equifax is awful to all of their "customers". There is a function on most bbs's and online forums called "ignore", that's how I see Equifax now with the security lock, report as you will, I won't see it.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

Booner72 — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:20:09 GMT

@pipeguy wrote:
So its not just me? I was starting to be paranoid..... Guess misery loves company but I really don't take any comfort in the fact that Equifax is awful to all of their "customers". There is a function on most Abs's and online forums called "ignore", that's how I see Equifax now with the security lock, report as you will, I won't see it.

Their customers are NOT US. Their customers are CA's and businesses that pay big money for our info. We are just an annoyance they have to put up with since the FCRA came along and made them let us see our reports, be able to dispute, etc.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:40:06 GMT

You are so right. I am an attorney who has been representing consumers in lawsuit against the credit bureaus, particularly Equifax, for years. We are not their customers. We are their inventory. They sell our information over and over again, never giving us a cent of the profit they make by, at best, selling our information or, at worst, ruining our good names. I have found that, for the majority of my clients, only a lawsuit will get Equifax's attention.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

pipeguy — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:41:45 GMT

Actually if you look at the financials for the credit agencies (SEC filings, etc) you'll see that about 25% of their income comes from credit services such as selling scores to consumers, credit monitoring, etc. If you search some of my previous postings, you'll notice that I'm not a fan of how the "big brother" CRA's and FICO sell us out to any bidder.

I've also found that Equifax will respond (slowly) to BBB complaints some of the time.

Re: Equifax Three-card Monte

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:24:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have found that, for the majority of my clients, only a lawsuit will get Equifax's attention.

I would like to see all of us bombard each of our state's Attorney General with letters reporting our dissatisfaction with Equifax, something like a class action all across the United States. Seriously! They are not going to change if we keep allowing their insolence. And, if there are other government agencies we can write letters to, please let us know -- and, lets be proactive in bringing this matter to light to achieve a positive result.