Transunion anomaly and difficulty obtaining report abroad

[Dougherty]

Recently I was doing some routine CLI requests. US Bank gave me a limit of only 2,400 USD to start out last Oct so now that 6 months have passed I was hoping for a juicy increase. Instead, I got a denial with a credit score of 518 from Transunion!

This is quite strange since my score at Experian is 711 and I have no derogs, 10+ years AOOA and <30% usage. I tried going to Transunion's site but got "Account Security: Your account has been temporarily suspended." Turns out you can't access your credit abroad Trying annualcreditreport.com also yields Access Denied, and when I used a VPN I got "Unable to Verify Identity".

In the past I wasn't able to access Credit Karma abroad either, but I read some reports that the app works. Luckily I was able to log in and my VantageScore 3.0 is 684.

So I know VantageScore can be off, and different credit reports can be off, but a 166 point difference seems like definitely some kind of error. What can I do?

Eta: 518 is from TransUnion Rapid Default Model Version 1

[JoeRockhead]

 One of the triggers in TU's rapid default scores is suspected fraud. Other factors such as too many recent accounts, too many inquiries, higher balances, too many monthly obligations also play a part.

Being they have you locked out I'd suspect this is the biggest factor to blame for the lower T.U.R.D. score.

You should contact TU to address the locked out status and consider cooling your jets with CLI requests for the time being.

[Dougherty]

Interesting, I've never seen "suspected fraud" or "being locked out" as factors in any credit report before.

That model isn't mentioned here https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/The-many-flavors-of-FICO-Editions-versio...

And the way credit scoring models typically work is very thorougly broken down here https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Credit-Scoring-Primer-pub-5-17-20/m-p/60...

No mention of fraud or lock outs.

Can't I just freeze Transunion if they're going to be this difficult and go ahead with the other two bureaus?

[Dougherty]

Checking through all my cards, I found CapitalOne provides TransUnion FICO Score 8, updated frequently, and says I have 726.
https://www.capitalone.com/creditwise/fico-faqs/

So... can I dispute the CLI and request that they use a score model more favorable to me?

[JoeRockhead]

The TU rapid default score isn't based on a Fico or Vantage version. It's a proprietary TU score that was specifically created to help detect bust-out fraud, and risk assessment of rapid defaults.  

It was introduced by TU in 2019.  While the Scoring Primer is full of a lot of great information, much of which is very relevant today, it shouldn't be considered as an unquestioned end all, be all source for all things Fico scoring.  Although it was published here in 2020, the work put into it began long before that by several contributors.  Even the author, the late Birdman (RIP), and the now vanished from the Internet Cassie were tweaking and adding information and new data points on another now defunct forum all the way up until Birdman's untimely death a couple years ago.  But again, the T.U.R.D. score isn't based on any Fico score version so it would be fair to say it was very likely a complete unknown to them when the Primer was published, and also the reason you don't find anything in the "many flavors of fico scoring". 

I doubt you'll be able to request that USB uses a different score version to recon the CLI decision, and a freeze won't prevent a current lender from doing a SP on your reports, or scores.  I'd first start with TU and your locked out status. 

[Patient957]

The turd strikes again, and as usual the results are pretty crappy.

@Dougherty 

Sorry about your CLI denial.  You're not the first person affected by this, and you won't be the last.  Collectively here at MF we don't know very much about this TURD scoring model.  @JoeRockhead has stated some of what we do think we know, but it's nowhere near our understanding of Fico scoring.  

The good news is that US Bank is the only significant user of the model, so we're not seeing Turd denials from other banks, and hopefully it stays that way.

BTW, thanks for posting your DPs.

[Dougherty]

Interesting. Googling around a bit, this score seems to be heavily penalized by a number of behaviors, vs other models

• Total utilization (dollar amount, not percent)
• New accounts (last year)
• Inquiries (last year)

In this case I had only the inquiry to open this US Bank card on TransUnion. I had two new cards in the last year - US Bank and a Wells Fargo card. However, my utilization is a cool 29k in credit card debt. Don't worry - I'm paying 0% interest.

Someone over at reddit had a similar profile to me and got a worse score.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/198mzlx/usbar_cli_denial_weird_transunion_rapid_defaul...