Kenneth Harney writes good "credit" articles which usually appear in the Sunday paper. This Sunday's was about Mortgage loans and credit scoring. Although primarily about home lending, the same problems are found with other lending. A couple quotes: "Mortgage industry experts estimate that between 350,000 and 400,000 applicants every year are overcharged when lenders incorrectly label them higher-risk or ``sub-prime'' because of their credit scores." ** And why would anyone in the industry do anything about it? Who want to kill the Golden Goose? And... "But since those applicants typically have no knowledge of their scores, or are not equipped to interpret them, they needlessly pay higher rates and fees." ** Except for the few 1000s who are well-informed, everyone else gets screwed? Full article: http://www.businesstoday.com/business/business/harn08242001.htm SK
Great post, SofaKing. We all need as much info as we can get and as much help as we can get. Thanks for helping
I wonder why some ambitious bright young attorney doesn't file a class action suit against the entire industry for their organized collusion in purposely letting inaccurate information rule the day since it results in higher interest rates being charged to more people. They collectively wink and nod, and assure the Congressman that they are doing the best that they can, while they cash the higher-than-they-should-be payments, and contribute money to each of the Congressmen's favorite PAC's and pet causes, thus protecting the status quo. Any of us who have simply reviewed our credit reports have ample cause for suspicion that they are not doing anything, much less their best, to make our reports accurate. Could probably bring the RICO statutes into play. Could be veddy, veddy interesting. While they are at it. Would not a series of tacit admissions of wrongdoing, of which I have read so many on this board alone, be grounds for a separate class action suit against many of the CA's as well as CRA's? F. Lee Bailey made a career (and a LOT of $$$) out of winning one big, supposedly unwinnable case. A number of attorneys are now billionaires, or near billionaires due to the tobacco settlements after having the nerve to take on an entire industry. Who's got more money than the money industry? Any takers? Or are all the sharks in Florida?
Along these same lines ... places like Worthknowing.com reflect low credit scores and then reference high-interest, sub-prime credit cards you might qualify for. I know what my transunion score is (over 600) and yet Worthknowing puts me at a 5 which is the bottom 5% of the population. WTF. Are they in cahoots with these sub-prime cards?
My score at WK is 26. They were steering me to AmEx Blue, DMB Titanium, DMB LOC, Discover Platinum. Not bad ones, at any rate. I didn't take any offers, but about a week later, I got snail mail solicitations from all of them. No PRM inquiries show either. I already have the DMB Titanium with a decent rate and LOC (prime terms), so I would say they aren't far off. But my WK has always been accurate. Not everyone's seems to be.
wk score of 26 is pretty good, someone else said they had a forty-something. I don't get it. I have a 5! Can't get much lower than that. I challenge someone to beat that! Oh well, TU is my worst cr by far. Hospital bills! Trouble is, the same hospital has 4 entries all with account nos.
Bill - for an old guy you've got a lot of snap! As far as Transunion's concerned, I guess I am. My Experian and Equifax scores are ok.
Hey! You are not in all that bad of shape after all. Just figure it out. Three credit bureaus and two of them are good. Doing the math, you have: 1-(2 ÷ 3)=(1-.6666667) 1-.6666667=.3333333 ad infinitium, ad nauseum. The infinitium part was probably due to the fact that when you started out, you probably thought the problems were so great that they would never end. The nauseum part probably is the result of thinking about how much work you have already done and still aren't finished with the mess. But you are "over the hill" and it's all downhill from here. Way to go. Keep up the good work.
Whatever Bill. Problem with Transunion is this. True, I had my own negs, and then they combined it (years ago before I knew what a credit report was) with someone else with the same name who also had a lot of negs. Negs + negs = twice as much work!
