Dear Liz: I just bought a home and my FICO credit scores are excellent: 842, 813 and 809. I requested copies of my files from all three credit bureaus, and one of them — which showed me with the lowest score — said the reason my score wasn’t higher is that I had “too many inquiries in the last two months” (I had two, one of which was for my mortgage) and an “insufficient length of credit history” (my first credit account was opened in 1980). I called the bureau, but the representative wouldn’t give me any more information and just wanted to sell me my credit score for $7.95. The person I talked to was in India, which upset me even more. If companies want to outsource to foreign lands, that’s up to them, but they are making money of off every American’s personal history. We should have a right to keep our personal information here in the U.S. I have emailed my lawmakers about this, but what more can I do?
Answer: One of the things you can do is stop worrying about why your credit scores aren’t higher. Once you get above 760 or so on the 300-to-850 FICO scale, you’ll get the best rates and terms from virtually any lender. The software that provides the scores is set up to spit out “reason codes” for why your numbers are the way they are, but the higher your scores, the less relevant those reasons may be. The software has to tell you something, even if “fixing” the “problem” wouldn’t really affect your numbers.
You also need to stop turning to the credit bureaus for information about your scores. Although they sell FICO scores to lenders, the bureaus use a proprietary formula purchased from another company (also called FICO). The bureaus can’t really tell you much more about how the formula works than you could find out for yourself at MyFico.com, which is a site FICO co-founded. Plus, the credit scores the bureaus want to sell to you typically aren’t the FICO scores used by most lenders.
As for your right to decide where your credit information is kept, in effect you have none. The credit reporting system was set up to benefit lenders, not consumers. If you want to change that, continue contacting your lawmakers.
