Alerts unrelated to provided score changes

[Anonymous]

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.

[SouthJamaica]

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@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.

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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.

[thornback]

+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.

[Anonymous]

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...

[GApeachy]

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@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...

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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.

[GApeachy]

 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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[HeavenOhio]

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.

[Anonymous]

Great thread so far.  I agree 100% folks.

[Anonymous]

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@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.

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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!