I just ran across a website that broke down how the FICO is calculated. I am sure some of you know this but for those who dont. Payment history 35% Amounts owed 30% Length of Credit history 15% New Credit 10% Types of Credit 10% Maybe this will give us a good idea what to work on to raise our scores. Any input from you guys?
That's not all there is to it. There are hidden code, like your neighborhood, your employment, that they aren't revealing.
Creditexpert simulator, which I hear is actually pretty useless, shoots my score way up when I lower my balances waaaaay down. I am sure Fico makes sense for someone... mostly just making cents for the credit card co's though, I am sure
Breeze, I've been kicking that idea around some as well. I find it hard to believe they would risk "redlining" accusations. And, when you have employees with access to the data, that sort of stuff will eevntually surface. As to the idea income doesn't matter or occupation-well, there I have a problem. It woould be so easy to ascertain some generalities. For example, you can look at a SS# and get an idea of someones age.{assuming they aren't a new citizen or lived in a cave for 20 years}. The CRA will list occupation. It's pretty easy to see that a 45 year old engineer will make more money that a 25 year old English teacher. Or, that a 45 year old civil servant has a more stable income stream that a 45 year old insurance agent. I'll be visiting with my Money and Banking Prof friend in a few weeks and quizz him on this line of thought.
Interestingly enough, I cannot find the article I used to refer to which stated this plainly - it was titled something like "Are your neighbors lowering your credit score?" and it went on to state that if you live in a neighborhood where a high percentage of people were late-payers or had defaulted, your score would be affected. It also had links to a specific conference on credit scoring where there was much discussion of the subject. Maybe Greg knows what happened to these sites. I don't know if they have been taken down, or have just gotten so old they are not showing up on search engines.
VCR refers to the site, however, the actual site is gone - you get a 404 error code - site not found. Wouldn't you know, hehe, I found it in a previous creditnet post http://consumers.creditnet.com/stra...stid=60370&highlight=score+neighbor#post60370
