Mildly Disatisfied Scorewatch User

[Andrew22]

Hey everyone:

So, I am at the very tail end of what has been a successful, and pretty swift rebuilding process. I started at the end of October with scores of TU 606, EQ 625, today, I am a 700-club member.

Here is my problem/complaint: A few months ago, there was a mix-up that accidentally sent old information about 4 student loans that were briefly in arrears in 2004 (long story short, forbearance mix-up). Loan company has fixed the error, sent me a letter to that effect, and updated to the credit bureaus, removing the 10 120-day late reports for the 4 loans that they'd incorrectly inserted in November (the loans were paid off in 2006). Now, my USAA account picked this up when the change was recorded at the bureaus (late Jan) and my "scores" there jumped. But Scorewatch did not, nor did my TU quarterly monitoring. And they still haven't. two weeks later. Scorewatch also did not pick up that a bogus collection had been removed, and neither has my TU quarterly monitoring.

So, based on the jumps I saw on USAA, I plunked down the cash to see what was up on EQ and bought a new scorewatch report. Sure enough, my score had gone from 681 to 715 since my last alert. Weird. I last got an alert when my credit card balance went up $5. But nothing in the last two weeks. In fact, I get email saying no changes to my score, when in fact, it jumped 34 points, and into a new bracket.

Shouldn't Scorewatch pick up the dropping of 120-day lates AND a collection? And a 34-point bump? I'm a little dissatisfied, and definitely upset that I plunked down the $19.95  to see a score bump I already pay $12.95 a month to see. Anyone know what is up with that?

BUT, my dissatisifaction is mild, because this service has really, really helped me. And,it can help you, too. I've raised my score almost 100 points in 4 months, and intoe the 700 club.

[creditchild]

hi andrew i just read your post and i had that same way with sw.

i've tried to explain to everyone the scorewatch is a joke! for example it would

drop my score for a bal increase,but i'll turn around within a day or so and pay the

bal off and nothing happens for like 3weeks. the simulator is also a joke, you can follow

it to a tee but the what you and what it suggest you do is totally crap. its a shame the way

they have this credit stuff set up. my score hasn't changed in over 3 months. i've did everything

from leave a small bal on my ccs to paying them off every month. and still nothing. people here

may say otherwise,but the suggestions here are unique the each individual's profile. in other words

what might work for you might not work for me. so the moral of this story is don't try to figure the scoring

and credit stuff out it'll only continue to disatisfy you. oh, and congrats on getting into the 700 club!!!!!!!

[Andrew22]

Hey thanks!  Yeah, no doubt, the credit stuff is unique to individual profiles, but I have used some good advice here to avoid mistakes, and make progress. But I shouldn't have to pay for a score power report to see a 34 point increase when I am paying score watch to show me this stuff. It's just wrong. I just got another email. No changes to my report!? huh?

[llecs]

OP, where was your target score set at?

[Andrew22]

Hi llecs: I never set a target score. Is that what happened here?

[llecs]

That could be an issue and here's why: SW is set up to pick up on a lot of things, but it doesn't pick up on dropped baddies like lates (or your dropped collection), only added ones. It will alert you to score increases (or decreases) that were caused by dropped baddies like the lates, but it will only alert you if your score passes (up or down) your set target score. I recommend setting your target to always match your current score and as you get a score alert, then immediately reset your target score to equal that score change. If set to equal your current score, then you'll be alerted if your score goes up or down. Now SW might or might not alert you to any status change on those SLs, but I'll defer to others on that and it would depend on what changed. Check out the SW Guide found stickied somewhere for more info. I would go in today and set your target score to 715 if that is your latest EQ FICO.

TU Quarterly Monitoring works much differently. It won't alert you to changes like SW. It certainly doesn't give any score alerts. But it will show your TU FICO report and score changes on a quarterly basis and show what those changes are.

[Andrew22]

Thanks fot that. Mild dissatisfaction aside, I'm still confused, because it is set to alert me when my score qualifies me for a new rate, which a 34-point bump certaintly did. And, I am a professional writer and I misspelled dissatisfaction in my title post. Haha...

But, in the scheme of things, I've come back from the credit dead, and this service, and this forum were both key in the process, so, being well into the 700s is worth being happy about.

[llecs]

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@Andrew22 wrote:

Thanks fot that. Mild dissatisfaction aside, I'm still confused, because it is set to alert me when my score qualifies me for a new rate, which a 34-point bump certaintly did.

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Just surmising, but if there wasn't a target score, I don't think it would have picked up on the score change and therefore wouldn't be alerted to any rate changes (assuming yours was set for Mortgage, Auto, or whatever). SW does pick up on that though, or at least in my experience.

In any case, congrats on the score increases!

[ficonightmare]

IIecs- I had the same issue. My target score was set to my current score and I didn't recieve an alert that my score changed. I only pulled my report because I had a feeling something was wrong as my UTIL dropped quite a bit.

Low and behold my EQ did change, and no alert.