My credit score

W

WhoseHouse

250+ Posts
So I was looking into refinancing my mortgage, and was ready to lock in a rate of 4.85% with 1/8 of a point. Sounded great. We just bought the house in May, so neither I nor the lender were worried about the credit score or anything changing since our first mortgage. So when she ran it, it came out at 640, which was not high enough to get a rate worth refinancing for. I was really confused, and went to freecreditreport.com (which I know is not really free) and ran my score and it was 765. All accounts on the credit report were in good standing.

I made one late car payment in July due to some confusion with my billing address, but that's it.

I guess the late car payment is responsible for the 100 point drop (???) but my main question, is why was the score I got online over 100 points higher than the ones my lender got? She ran all three and none were over 660.
 
There are different scoring systems for a mortgage report vs. the reports you can find online.



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not true. Regardless of why you are getting them pulled the ones pulled will be the exact same. The difference is there are three credit reporting agencies and they can have different info on them. Trans union, experian, and equifax. I have seen this numerous times where one is much different than the other two.

find out what one they used and look it up on line. You can find out if there is an error or what is causing it. Oh, and don't use freecreditreport.com use annualcreditreport.com it is free unless you want the score, but you can get all three.
 
Not sure how annualcreditreport works, but I REALLY like the feature Freecreditreport offers where they alert you if there has been a credit inquiry in your name (for a monthly fee of around $12).

As a person who recently had several fraudulent credit cards applied for in my name, I like getting these notices so I can react immediately.
 
FICO is the only score that matters. Use myfico.com to get it. Those other beacon scores don't mean much.
 
Ok so I went to myfico.com and got my score there. It was in line with what the lender said- 656. It also said that 656 was "below average". I find that a little hard to believe. It's because of one late car payment (30 days) and one late Gap card payment in early 2007 (30 days). These people are harsh!
 
pay ahead of time and more than the actual payment due. that'll raise it back up real quick.

when you do have a late a payment, always contact the company immediately and ask for a leniency. sometimes they will waive it from record, but still charge you the fee. sometimes waive it all together. never just settle with knowing it was late.

other ways to raise your score is to make sure you don't have all your debt on one card. spread it out a little. i don't know why, but they like that too.
 
GOO- do you think it would be beneficial to call about my late car payment back in July? Obviously that's the only thing keeping me under 700 as it's the only negative thing added to my credit report since I got the first mortgage, since the other late payment was back in 2007.
 
it wouldn't hurt to ask. the worse they could say is no. i was just informing to anyone who read my post and has a late charge to call that credit co. asap to get it expunged.

yours might be too far back for them to do anything. i'd at least call for the shits and giggles of slight chance they'd do something. tell them your story.
 
Write to all three credit reporting agecies and explain that the problem was the due to the lenders confusion. They ahve 30 days to fix the account, if no response from the lender it is dropped.
 
Wait. Your credit score was 765 before your original loan?

If that is the case, then your original loan probably caused most of the problem. Adding over $100 thousand in debt will bring your score down. Also, have you added any credit card debt?
 
So you're saying that getting a mortgage would drop my score that much? It kind of makes sense to me, but it also makes sense that making my regular mortgage payments (as I have been) would bring it up instead. Also, my lender listed the one late car payment as the reason and did not indicate that the mortgage may have caused it to go down.
 
whosehouse, that is a really big drop. i am by no means a credit expert, but i know that i have a long history of bad credit decisions and late payments and mine is in your range.... a little lower. surely there is a poster on here that is intimately familiar with this. otherwise it has to be your mortgage debt... although i have never heard of that.... one late car payment will not drop you 100 points or anything close.
 
I went over to that fico.com site, and it looks like you have to sign up for their service to get a "free trail" score, is this correct? Then what do you do, cancel the service later if you don't want it?
 
Looks like you can get a free FICO score from Equifax (one of the three available) with a trial of ScoreWatch from Equifax.

I wouldn't do it.

These credit rating agencies are getting fined all the time by the FTC for their deceptive practices.

Equifax or Experian (damn names are too similar) ripped me off and later had to pay a $500K fine for doing the same to others. My settlement was a free subscription to the service they had misleadingly subscribed me to in the first place when I tried to order a standard credit report (I had called immediately to cancel the service and they told me I would have to call back and cancel three months later).

That said, I've purchased the standard MyFico product with the three scores before several times. It's legit.

Be sure to search for a promo code. You can likely save 20%.
 
I'm saying the people who rate your creditworthiness are not to be trusted. They went so far as to design their own website to be deceitful, like some fly-by-night operation. Do not give them your credit card number.

That happened to me before 2006. Yet in 2006, someone posted online:

In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
The Link is done so you can get all three credit reports for free to see what is on them. However, just like lenders have to pay to request yours you will have to pay the fee there as well. This is the website that was put together after George Bush said you can get one report for free each year.
 
WTF? You are saying go to blahblahblah to get three free credit scores but pay the fee to get them? So there is no free site to get your credit score? That is the question.
Not a site that says pay $20 and its free. Call me crazy, but I find that scenario somewhat differing from "free."
Maybe there is no place to find the information, which is fine, but quit calling something free when it isn't free.
Oh, I think I see: the credit "report" can be obtained for free once a year, but the credit "score" is not free? You have to pay for the only information you really want? OK, I got the picture.
 
I had the same thing happen. My wife paid for a hand mixer at Sears with credit card. Sears sent the bill to my old address since we never never used the card. I started to wonder why i hadn't recieved a bill so i called sears to pay it in full. Of course they charged a 29 or $39.00 late fee. I was mad but it wasn't their fault. Well i got an alert that my credit had dropped 60 points. Apparently Sears didn't inform me when i calledto make a payment that they also charge a phone payment charge of $10.00 and i didn't pay that bill and with the late fees i was 60 days late now. Man its getting harder and harder to keep a good credit score.
 
I see you can get a free credit "report" of how many credit cards you have open, what the balance is, etc.
It sounds like the only way to get the credit score is to pay the fee, which from Experian is $5.95. But I assume you have to give them a credit card, and on this thread we are warned to not give these companies your credit card number because they set you up for a continuing fee every month.
Is this correct? anyone successfully get a credit score without problems?
 
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