topic Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes in myFICO® Product Feedback

Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 03:48:41 GMT

I'm not sure if this message will be seen by the right eyes, but if the mods could work to make that happen it would be greatly appreciated. A major issue exists with the MF alert system and the FICO score provided at the time of the alert. The problem I'm speaking of has been going on for years and can be read about at any given time in probably 3-4 active threads in the "Understanding FICO scoring" section of the forum.

When MF members are provided with an alert, they're provided with an updated score at the time. Not surprisingly, they always assume that the score change is related to the alert received when many times the two events are completely unrelated. Adding a simple disclaimer on that screen that says something to the tune of, "The score change provided may have no correlation at all to the alert received" would greatly reduce or eliminate this problem. I understand that there's a blurb that states something along the lines of your score may be impacted by other factors on your credit report, but clearly that fine print isn't enough as evidenced by the many threads we see every day started by confused and mislead MF subscribers. Many are wrongly guided by these alerts, coming to believe things like "paying down revolving debt is bad" because they received an alert for a balance paydown and were provided a new [lower] score at the time that had absolutely nothing to do with the paydown.

It would really be beneficial to the community and MF product subscribers if something could be done to fix this. I appreciate your time.

Other veteran members reading this that are aware of this ongoing issue, please feel free to echo my concern above and/or contribute your thoughts regarding this problem so that I don't seem like the only one that recognizes it.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

SouthJamaica — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 03:53:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I'm not sure if this message will be seen by the right eyes, but if the mods could work to make that happen it would be greatly appreciated. A major issue exists with the MF alert system and the FICO score provided at the time of the alert. The problem I'm speaking of has been going on for years and can be read about at any given time in probably 3-4 active threads in the "Understanding FICO scoring" section of the forum.

When MF members are provided with an alert, they're provided with an updated score at the time. Not surprisingly, they always assume that the score change is related to the alert received when many times the two events are completely unrelated. Adding a simple disclaimer on that screen that says something to the tune of, "The score change provided may have no correlation at all to the alert received" would greatly reduce or eliminate this problem. I understand that there's a blurb that states something along the lines of your score may be impacted by other factors on your credit report, but clearly that fine print isn't enough as evidenced by the many threads we see every day started by confused and mislead MF subscribers. Many are wrongly guided by these alerts, coming to believe things like "paying down revolving debt is bad" because they received an alert for a balance paydown and were provided a new [lower] score at the time that had absolutely nothing to do with the paydown.

It would really be beneficial to the community and MF product subscribers if something could be done to fix this. I appreciate your time.

Other veteran members reading this that are aware of this ongoing issue, please feel free to echo my concern above and/or contribute your thoughts regarding this problem so that I don't seem like the only one that recognizes it.

I agree with you 100%. Not a day goes by that there aren't new posts by people who think that there must be a causal relationship between the substance of the alert and the score change. We shouldn't have to spend so much time explaining it to people. MyFICO should either separate alerts regarding events from alerts regarding score updates, or make it much clearer in the alerts that the score change and the alert substance may be entirely unrelated to each other.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

thornback — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 04:04:20 GMT

+1

This is an almost daily discussion and it is often very difficult for a newcomer, already unfamiliar with FICO scoring, to understand - even when thoroughly explained by multiple vereran posters.

There needs to be, at the very least, a clear disclaimer stating that there may be no correlation between event alerts and score changes.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 11:21:00 GMT

I also agree with this. One of the biggest keys to making a marketable product, regardless of what it is, is making the information it contains clear and as easy to interpret as possible. This goes doubly for something as intricate and complex as FICO scoring with its hundreds of moving parts. So much confusion exists already with how one’s actions affect one’s results, that a simple statement such as that suggested by BrutalBodyShots would go a long way toward quelling the panic we see from newcomers to the community who haven’t been around long enough to learn the ins and outs of the scoring algorithms.

I will add also that seeing a good number of complaints from members here that see scoring updates in their credit account portals (received as a courtesy from their lenders) far sooner than they see from their paid MyFICO subscriptions is what has kept me from signing up for my own ongoing monitoring via MF. Seeing reporting from members that updates are received in a much more timely fashion would definitely spur me to purchase, but when members say that they’ve seen two month intervals without a MF update, but have seen updates in their complimentary scores from credit issuers, it doesn’t provide a strong selling recommendation...

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

GApeachy — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:21:03 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I also agree with this. One of the biggest keys to making a marketable product, regardless of what it is, is making the information it contains clear and as easy to interpret as possible. This goes doubly for something as intricate and complex as FICO scoring with its hundreds of moving parts. So much confusion exists already with how one’s actions affect one’s results, that a simple statement such as that suggested by BrutalBodyShots would go a long way toward quelling the panic we see from newcomers to the community who haven’t been around long enough to learn the ins and outs of the scoring algorithms.

I will add also that seeing a good number of complaints from members here that see scoring updates in their credit account portals (received as a courtesy from their lenders) far sooner than they see from their paid MyFICO subscriptions is what has kept me from signing up for my own ongoing monitoring via MF. Seeing reporting from members that updates are received in a much more timely fashion would definitely spur me to purchase, but when members say that they’ve seen two month intervals without a MF update, but have seen updates in their complimentary scores from credit issuers, it doesn’t provide a strong selling recommendation...

Last month I cancelled dh's subscription, yesterday I cancelled my subscription for the fact that I have gotten multiple updates everywhere else, the recent alerts here are late to the party.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

GApeachy — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:19:37 GMT

As far as the 'reason' for an increase or a decrease being so vague it causes some of us to seek out other credit reporting bureaus. Customer service plz hear us.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 11:57:50 GMT

Possibly, if it actually alerted for changes in a timely manner it would be more accurate. Once it does finally alert, the score update ends up being about 2 or 3 changes behind and that alone is confusing.

Candidly, it’s just a terrible product for the price, unless you are looking for a service that provides the full list of scores.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

HeavenOhio — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 17:52:25 GMT

The sentence that's there is fine. But one more sentence needs to be added that bluntly states that what triggered the alert isn't necessarily the cause of the score change.

I'm not necessarily bothered by answering the same question frequently, depending on the nature of the question. I'll happily respond to "What does it take to get a Chase card?" whenever it comes up.

What bothers me about the alert-related posts is that we have frustrated OPs who shouldn't have to be frustrated.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 23:50:12 GMT

Great thread so far. I agree 100% folks.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 02:34:06 GMT

@HeavenOhio wrote:
The sentence that's there is fine. But one more sentence needs to be added that bluntly states that what triggered the alert isn't necessarily the cause of the score change.

I'm not necessarily bothered by answering the same question frequently, depending on the nature of the question. I'll happily respond to "What does it take to get a Chase card?" whenever it comes up.

What bothers me about the alert-related posts is that we have frustrated OPs who shouldn't have to be frustrated.

I agree 100%. And, in many cases that frustration actually crosses over into straight up anger. OPs are actually angry at FICO scoring, many times calling it a "scam" and their threads are quickly derailed with us [members] playing damage control. This is all because they are mislead by a product that they're actually paying quite a bit for. Whoever controls the MF product and has the power to change how the alert page is displayed stands to lose nothing from a simple fix (disclaimer) here and everything to gain in terms of happier customers due to more transparent disclosure.

Thank you to those that have contributed to this thread thus far!

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Cindy_FICO — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 18:19:31 GMT

Thanks for all the feedback. The product team has been working on some copy that would be more helpful to our customers. Do you think the proposed replacement would be an improvement?

Currently:

“Your score may be affected by additional information in your credit report”

Proposed:

“Your current score is based on your latest credit data. Score changes may also be caused by other recent changes in your credit data.

We appreciate your feedback, and we appreciate the help on this.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 18:50:25 GMT

@Cindy_FICO any plans with the development team to increase the speed/accuracy of updates? The change in disclaimer, while maybe helpful, almost seems like a bandaid solution.

When other services, even free ones like Credit Karma for example, alert to changes often days before MF does I don’t see why MF can’t have that same level of service since they are collecting (a lot of) money from customers. Additionally, CK alerts for nearly every little thing that happens to my report; MF largely stays silent.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 02:26:15 GMT

@Cindy_FICO wrote:
Thanks for all the feedback. The product team has been working on some copy that would be more helpful to our customers. Do you think the proposed replacement would be an improvement?

Currently:
“Your score may be affected by additional information in your credit report”

Proposed:
“Your current score is based on your latest credit data. Score changes may also be caused by other recent changes in your credit data.

We appreciate your feedback, and we appreciate the help on this.

Cindy,

Thank you for replying to this thread and taking into consideration the opinions of those that have weighed in on the subject. It sounds like you're open-minded to making a change here, which I think is great news. I think your proposed statement above is a step in the right direction, but I believe it could still be a bit misleading to the member. While it does suggest that other credit data changes may impact the score provided, it indirectly I believe still [silently] suggests that the alert reason is impacting the score change. I feel most members would come away from it saying, "OK, my score changed because of [the alert reason] but also may have changed in part due to something else." I think it just needs to be clear that the score change could have absolutely nothing to do with the alert, not that the alert coupled with other credit data change(s) caused the score change. I think the difference here is very subtle in terms of wording, but could completely change how the member interprets what's going on.

I'd like to hear what the other members think though, as I could definitely use some help here in terms of wording it best.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 02:32:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
The change in disclaimer, while maybe helpful, almost seems like a bandaid solution.

The proposed disclaimer change and the issue you are describing with the speed of alerts relative to other services are two completely different issues; It wouldn't be a bandaid to address/fix one (or the other).

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 03:21:25 GMT

One of the ways BBS and others explain it in the forums to new members is worded more or less as follows, and blended with Cindy’s proposal. Maybe this would be a good way to eliminate confusion:

“Your credit score is based on your most recent data. Not all credit report changes will generate an alert, so your recent score change may be as a result of your latest alert, a prior non-alerted event, or a combination of the two.”

Opinions and adjustments to improve this are welcome and encouraged.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

SouthJamaica — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 12:32:00 GMT

@Cindy_FICO wrote:
Thanks for all the feedback. The product team has been working on some copy that would be more helpful to our customers. Do you think the proposed replacement would be an improvement?

Currently:
“Your score may be affected by additional information in your credit report”

Proposed:
“Your current score is based on your latest credit data. Score changes may also be caused by other recent changes in your credit data.

We appreciate your feedback, and we appreciate the help on this.

Hi Cindy

Thank you so much for looking into this ongoing issue. The problem with the language you suggest is the use of the word "also". It implies that the score change definitely does have some relationship to the alert substance which is often not the case. Often the substance of the alert is something positive, but the score change is negative.

I would suggest the following instead:

Included in this alert as an additional service to you is an update of your FICO 8 score. The updated score is based on all of your latest credit data, and may or may not have a relationship to the alert content.

Thanks again Cindy. Much appreciated.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 12:33:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

“Your credit score is based on your most recent data. Not all credit report changes will generate an alert, so your recent score change may be as a result of your latest alert, a prior non-alerted event, or a combination of the two.”

I think we're getting warmer here.

Anyone else have an opinion on the quote above?

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

SouthJamaica — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 12:34:26 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Cindy_FICO wrote:
Thanks for all the feedback. The product team has been working on some copy that would be more helpful to our customers. Do you think the proposed replacement would be an improvement?

Currently:
“Your score may be affected by additional information in your credit report”

Proposed:
“Your current score is based on your latest credit data. Score changes may also be caused by other recent changes in your credit data.

We appreciate your feedback, and we appreciate the help on this.
Cindy,

Thank you for replying to this thread and taking into consideration the opinions of those that have weighed in on the subject. It sounds like you're open-minded to making a change here, which I think is great news. I think your proposed statement above is a step in the right direction, but I believe it could still be a bit misleading to the member. While it does suggest that other credit data changes may impact the score provided, it indirectly I believe still [silently] suggests that the alert reason is impacting the score change. I feel most members would come away from it saying, "OK, my score changed because of [the alert reason] but also may have changed in part due to something else." I think it just needs to be clear that the score change could have absolutely nothing to do with the alert, not that the alert coupled with other credit data change(s) caused the score change. I think the difference here is very subtle in terms of wording, but could completely change how the member interprets what's going on.

I'd like to hear what the other members think though, as I could definitely use some help here in terms of wording it best.

I agree 100%. This is my suggestion for the disclaimer:

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 12:36:21 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
Included in this alert as an additional service to you is an update of your FICO 8 score. The updated score is based on all of your latest credit data, and may or may not have a relationship to the alert content.

I like this a lot too. The more clear it can be that the alert and the score [change] may not be related the better, since 99% of the time that's the misconception.

Re: Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

SouthJamaica — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 12:37:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
One of the ways BBS and others explain it in the forums to new members is worded more or less as follows, and blended with Cindy’s proposal. Maybe this would be a good way to eliminate confusion:

“Your credit score is based on your most recent data. Not all credit report changes will generate an alert, so your recent score change may be as a result of your latest alert, a prior non-alerted event, or a combination of the two.”

Opinions and adjustments to improve this are welcome and encouraged.

I think it's good except I would change "a prior non-alerted event" to "one or more prior non-alerted events"