How Can This Be?

[justcallmebroke]

I don't understand it. Our mortgage company gave us a less-than-excellent score because the credit reporting agency (I think it's Experian) they get their info from doesn't list all the facts about us.

However, our auto insurance gives us an A+ rating because they get their info about us from the other two credit reporting agencies, and our credit scores are higher with those two because they've got more complete info on us.

Why are these three credit reporting agenies allowed to do this? Why isn't the government regulating what info they put on our credit reports? It's so unfair that one agency cost us points on our credit score by not including important info like job history and that companies can choose to only go with that one agency.

Sorry, this became a vent. But anyone understand my frustration?

[Admin]

I can understand your frustrations. Unfortunately, creditors are allowed to pick-and-choose which credit bureau they use. And often times, different credit bureaus will hold different information about you at any given time.

While this may be true, you have to also keep in mind that different industries also have different ways of calculating your FICO scores. This is because certain industries may place more weight on certain criterias when formulating their algorithms. For instance, your auto lender may come up with a different FICO score than your mortgage lender, and the same idea goes for credit card issuers.

[justcallmebroke]

Thanks for explaining this. You did a much better job than my mortgage company. When I called them, all I got was the runaround and no answers. I didn't know that each industry could do its formula differently. What an eye-opener!

[dangar1999]

Mortgage companies use all 3 credit bureaus and generally choose the middle score (drop the high and low) This is probably the fairest of any industry as most only use one score.

Thanks
Danny