I had an interesting lesson in scoring last week. I helped my parents negotiate a new car and they financed through the credit union. I told my Dad to ask what their scores were and he did. 806 for both my parents, generated by Equifax. the lady said she'd never seen spouses get identical scores ever before. He and my Mom have the exact same credit profiles, all joint accounts, and they've been married for over 35 years now. perfect credit history. Here's where it gets interesting. 2 hours later... They go to the car dealership, check in hand, and the dealership wants a credit profile pulled to accept the check. standard procedure (and if anyone has any comments on the legitimacy of that, I'd be interested). But the real lesson is here. They keep NO debt except their mortgage. Equifax was also pulled by the dealership (different model than the credit union one) and this time their scores differed dramatically. Mom: 778, Dad 664. I have better than that! So I asked to see the profiles and somehow their only debt, an over 400K mortgage, only showed up on my Dad's profile but not on my Mom's. odd. Also, look at the difference in models and scores generated. I was surprised at how different they were! Another lesson in going to a credit union While we've had debates on installment vs revolving credit and which hurts more... I know I take a huge hit for 10k in what looks like credit card debt, but even with the lower car model, my Dad has an ok score with all that installment debt. It's as close as a controlled experiment as I can ever get. 2 hours apart, exact profiles, and look at the differences. I may see if I can join a credit union.
Happy Holidays I am new to this board. I do have a comment on the dealership requesting a credit report for a cash customer. It was not necessary for them to do that. It may be a policy of theirs but no matter how high or low the score, I can not see a dealership turning away a customer that poses no liabiblty to them. Take the check, give the customer the car and the deal is done. If they believe the check is not valid, then can call the bank. I purchased a car last year, check in hand from the credit union and did not give the finance manager my social security number. (Sorry if this is a long response) KK
"The FTC, in their Coffey opinion letter, addresses the FTC's position on the mere acceptance of a personal check(demand deposit) being a permissible purpose for a cra to release your credit file to the dealer.See Below. ------------------------------------------------------------ "For example, a consumer who asks a dealer questions about prices and financing is not necessarily indicating an intent to purchase or lease a vehicle from that particular dealer. Nor does the dealer have a "legitimate" business need for a consumer report in this situation. The consumer may simply be comparison shopping. In such a situation, the dealer must obtain written permission from the consumer before obtaining a consumer report. If the dealer would like to see a consumer's credit report before answering general questions about the availability of financing, this must be explained to the consumer and written permission must be obtained. In the same way, a request to "test drive" a vehicle does not indicate an intent to initiate the purchase or lease of the vehicle. Accordingly, if a consumer asks to test drive a vehicle, the dealer must obtain written permission from the consumer before obtaining a report. Only in those circumstances where it is clear both to the consumer and to the dealer that the consumer is actually initiating the purchase or lease of a specific vehicle and, in addition, the dealer has a legitimate business need for consumer report information may the dealer obtain a report without written permission. In this regard, we note that obtaining information for negotiation purposes does not constitute a "legitimate" business need. The dealer must have a specific need for the information directly related to the completion of the transaction. For example, a dealer may obtain a report, if one is necessary, in order to arrange financing requested by the consumer.(1) The dealer may also obtain a report to check a consumer's creditworthiness when the consumer presents a personal check to pay for the vehicle. By contrast, a permissible purpose would not arise if a consumer intends to pay by cash." ============================================== Taken from-http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra/coffey.htm VJ "The first Creditnet Member to sue the FTC gets my vote for "Member of the Year".
"CASH CUSTOMER"...NO LEGITIMATE REASON TO PULL!!! FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE FTC, BBB, CIA, FBI, KGB, WHO EVER WILL LISTEN...
So let me see if I got this: EXACT SAME PERFECT history except mortgage which is only on Dad's report and Dad gets SLAMMED 114 points for having a mortgage (debt sure, but paid on time - every time, right). Is this maybe a recent mortgage or recent refinance? Unless someone had say, multiple mortgages I would have assumed a mortgage in good standing would help your score. Like having at least one retail card...having a mortgage should be a positive credit factor! Wow...thanks for sharing the information Marie. This really shows how whacked these scoring models are. -Peace, Dave
THE SCORE COMES OUT OF A HAT!!! I PAID OFF MOST OF WIFE'S CREDIT CARDS...SHE WAS 741...NOW 683... HER DEBT TO CREDIT LIMIT HAVE NEVER BEEN BETTER...
There is no excuse for this . They weren't asking for credit. No credit - no report is the way I see it. Had it been me I would have told the dealer where he could stick his car and walked out.
You have the rite idea. I would have told that dealer where he could put his car and it would have been a very tight fit!
Here is a golden opportunity for the crooks at FICO & the CRAs.Pull reports everytime you pay by check. This ought to create enough inquiries to get your score down to -1000 in nothing flat.
They probably did it to try to offer you some a better financing deal "if they could". I still think it was wrong. It's no secret that Dealerships get alot of profit in financing too. The CRA's keep all of our information in large databases. They say they don't reference our reorts with just one piece of information, such as our SSN's. They use multiple pieces of data.(SSN, NAME, ADDRESS) A large database that accesses information in this manner is will never be 100% accurate when searching. Imagine this... You are a Saudi Prince and you have 10000 cars. You tell your chauffeau that you want your Red Ferrari with the leather seats and the killer sound system. There's probably 15 cars that matches that description. Depending how you walked around the lot you may missed the farrari's altogether. Get it. I'm also curious about the various means of retrieving the CRA data and how individual computers interpret different things. A year ago Qspace was selling super inaccurate reports and reports with very little data. Bussinesses alot of times are using middle men to get reports too. I think alot is lost in the "translation" Too little Government Regulation is bitting us in the butt here.
The mortgage is in both names. At the credit union it pulled up under both my parents files: hence, identical scores. But the Equifax car score was dramatically less than the credit union score and I have NO CLUE why the mortgage didn't show on my Mom's profile at the dealership. None. I had a small issue with them pulling credit to accept a credit union check (they could have called the credit union and verified it). My Dad had just come from there straight to the dealership. they didn't mind so I kept quiet. Their tolerance level is much higher than mine anyway, it was as close as a controlled experiment as I can ever get and I thought it was very interesting how the different models generated drastically different scores on perfect credit files. As to why the mortgage showed on only one at the dealership... who knows. As for the mortgage. It's about 2 years old because they recently built their dream home and so yes, in comparison to their old mortgage it's new and the ratio would be higher... I agree that a 100 point drop is a crock. But I guess I also wanted to share how odd this all is. I know we try to figure it out but perhaps we should just do what we know to do to maximize our scores and then let it go. After seeing this b/s on the models I'm also coming to the conclusion that it's all a crock to shaft us on interest rates. Play the game as best as you can and forget about it. Oh, and join a credit union
What Gives the dealer a rite to pull a credit report on the credit unions check? Sounds like an out and out violation of the credit laws to me! I"ll admit I have a very low tolerance for customer abuse. That's why I would have told the dealer to shove the car and walked out!
