Score simulators - remove items and gauge impact?

[Anonymous]

Hey all - I've played with score simlulators for both FICO and VantageScore numbers at multiple sites, but one feature I've never seen that I think would be awesome, is the ability to remove specific marks and simulate the impact.  Such as, what if I managed a GW removal of that pair of 90 day lates from 5 years ago?  What if that one CO from 2014 was removed?  How aboout that entire tradeline?  It seems so obviously desirable to me, I imagine it must exist somewhere.  Or does nobody else think that would be useful?

Full disclosure: I don't have a paid MyFico membership, so no idea if that's a feature here.  I use Discover, DCU, etc for free monthly FICO, and Cap1, CK, Bankrate, etc for the so called "FAKO".  (rant: While 'FAKO" is a neat little play on the "FICO" acronym, VantageScore is a totally legit scoring sytem, it just isn't as widely used in lending decisions.  Although it seems it's use is constantly growing.  It's not a fake, it's a competing system is all. /rant)

Anyway, if someone knows of a scroing simulator as I described, please enlighten me!

[Anonymous]

Scoring simulators are garbage IMO.  On the already limited set of variables that they try to assess with all of 10 questions that they ask they are way off the mark for many people.

The best simulator you can find is right here.  This forum.  The fine folks on this forum will be able to predict score changes based on your profile data with much more accuracy than a simulator ever will.

[Anonymous]

I agree with BBS.  The one thing I'd love to see over time (but it'll probably never happen) is fewer questions being posted of the form:

I just did X and Y and Z.  Can someone tell me what will happen to my score?

What I have been trying to say more of in response is: We can only guess.  Pull your scores in a week or two for a $1 and then you'll actually know.

It's just so strange that to me that people take actions and then afterward decide to ask what their consequences could be.  Far more productive is to solicit advice before taking any action.  Then, armed with knowledge, take the best informed actions you can.

This is what our OP is trying to do with simulators and it makes sense.  Just that he can do even better by leveraging the folks on the forum rather than the simulator.

[Anonymous]

Well put, CGID.

[RobertEG]

When someone develops a new algorithm, they have the option of attempting to protect it either by way of a patent or by attempting to maintain it as a trade secret.  Patent protection is stronger, but requires full public disclosure of the algorithm, so many will attempt to maintain the algorithm as a trade secret.  While there are laws protecting trade secrets, if another party is able to reverse engineer the invention without any improper obtaining of proprietary information from the owner, then they are free to thereafter make, use, or sell the invention without any royalties to the inventor.

Thus, trade secrets require substantial efforts to protect against third party reverse engineering.

Providing very specific simulations of single actions would vastly increase the ability to reverse engineer the algorithm.

The benefits from offering a score simulation based on a given algorithm must be balanced against the damage that might occur due to legitimate reverse engineering attempts.  Thus, you will not see a detailed simulator of trade secret scoring algorithms.

[Anonymous]

Great post above, Robert.

[Anonymous]

I am working on a credit score simulator using crowdsourced material (profiles and scores).  Not just FICO 8 but all of the various scores including NES, VS3, FICO Mortgage, etc.

I spoke with my lawyer who is a very well known patent and IP lawyer nationally and he's been guiding me in how to alleviate the risk of patent violations since FICO and others have "credit score simulator" patents.  The best way for me to legally work around these patents is to use free speech protections and formulate the simulator as a forum instead of a calculator.

Basically, folks input their profiles exactly into a social networking app, and if they do a credit score pull they can associate it with their profile on that day.  If someone else uploads their profile and runs a simulation (say, removing a 30D late or deleting a tax lien or adding a new loan), the social network looks at as many simular profiles (historically) as the future profile will be and then just quotes that person's credit scores they themselves posted.  It's not illegal to post your credit score on a forum and say "My score was this based on this profile that day".

It's a real mess because credit scoring is part of life and business (and insurance rates and employment and other things) but they're so protected by so many patents that I sometimes wonder if it might be illegal to even mention your credit score and profile!  

It's incredible to me how opaque the product is, but it makes sense because we are not the consumer of credit scoring, we're the ones providing totally free data to billion dollar companies, but we're not really allowed to understand scoring.  Dig too deeply and the lawyers will bite you.

Most credit score simulators are licensed from one or another patent holder in credit score simulation patents:

• Experian: https://www.google.com/patents/US7925582
• ConsumerInfo: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9569797B1/en
• M. Steele (old): https://www.google.com/patents/US20060218067
• Experian: https://www.google.com/patents/US7593891
• FICO: https://www.google.com/patents/US8078524

And there are many many more.  I've read them all, I think, including all of the citations (hundreds of them).  Writing an honest to goodness simulator would violate hundreds of patents, but writing a social network to quote what other people share appears to be above water.

[RobertEG]

If you produce a credit score via a comparison with scores of others in a database of stored scores, I agree that you are not producing the score by way of an algorithm that takes input parameters and produces a score via calculated steps.  To infringe on any patent, the patentee must show that you used their algorithm (or its equivalent) in producing the scores.  

However, there is no "infringement" of a scoring algorithm that is being protected as a trade secret rather than a patent.

If you are able to reproduce the algorithm on your own, you are free to make, use and sell it without any issue of patent infringement.

The key is that in your reproduction of the algorithm, you did not use any information illegally obtained from a party who has knowledge of the algorithm by way of their association or employment with the party who is protecting their trade secret.

If, for example, you are able to reproduce the formula for Coke, you can sell your own cola with no legal peril.

However, if you pay an employee of Coca Cola for a copy of their trade secret formula, you would be in violation of trade secret law.

Holders of trade secrets are banking on being able to conceal their trade secret for a longer period than offered by a patent (i.e., approx 20 years), and potentially forever.

[Anonymous]

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@RobertEG wrote:

When someone develops a new algorithm, they have the option of attempting to protect it either by way of a patent or by attempting to maintain it as a trade secret.  Patent protection is stronger, but requires full public disclosure of the algorithm, so many will attempt to maintain the algorithm as a trade secret.  While there are laws protecting trade secrets, if another party is able to reverse engineer the invention without any improper obtaining of proprietary information from the owner, then they are free to thereafter make, use, or sell the invention without any royalties to the inventor.

Thus, trade secrets require substantial efforts to protect against third party reverse engineering.

Providing very specific simulations of single actions would vastly increase the ability to reverse engineer the algorithm.

The benefits from offering a score simulation based on a given algorithm must be balanced against the damage that might occur due to legitimate reverse engineering attempts.  Thus, you will not see a detailed simulator of trade secret scoring algorithms.

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Yes! This makes perfect, logical sense.  For anyone in posession of the actual algorithm used to calculate these complex scores, it would be fairly trivial to make a simulator allowing the user to manipualte any number variables to their hearts content.  Which would be incredibly useful and super cool.  Problem is, that level of insight would expose the inner workings of said algorithm, revealing their trade secret.

Seems obvoius after you point it out... thanks for your insight!

Father O'.

[Anonymous]

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@RobertEG wrote:

If you produce a credit score via a comparison with scores of others in a database of stored scores, I agree that you are not producing the score by way of an algorithm that takes input parameters and produces a score via calculated steps.  To infringe on any patent, the patentee must show that you used their algorithm (or its equivalent) in producing the scores.  

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I thought the same but that's untrue because the patents aren't just about a given algorithm for calculating a credit score, but for actually showing estimates based on projected inputs.  I've gone over the patent justification with my IP lawyer for 3 months now and he basically told me I was SOL on many things I wanted to provide specifically because it may infringe on some of the patents that cover stimulations of credit score potentials.

My workaround appears to handle things better because it isn't a simulation, it's a look-up of people's statements and just "quoting" their score based on similarities to one of their input from a given date.  Of course, any patent holder can sue for any reason and I'd need a strong defense, but it might be interesting to battle that dragon at a future date.