Member Graph: what is it all about?

i would like to add my'2 cents' to this forum. I DO know ( and, I'm surprised alot of people DON'T know this), if people are checking your credit report ( bank, finance co., etc) your score DOES decrease. The longer you DON'T have someone check it, eventually, your score will go up.

Right. Each hard inquiry will drop your score 2-5 points...and the effect lasts for at least 6 months. The inquiries will remain on the credit report for 2 years.

so.........the longer you wait until someone checks your credit, you're better off. I do have a question?........the pre-sreened services ( ie. credit cards, etc.)....they DO check your credit, too. How can I have them removed? Never knew they checked credit.

Marketing inquiries are not factored into your score. IMO, the biggest reason to opt out of the pre-screened mailings is to reduce the risk of identity theft.

It is very important to know these facts. A simple inquiry can cost you 5 points. For soft inquiries the details of the company has to be on your report as well. Go ahead and make the call and remove credit inquiries from your report.

Believe me..I have called them!! However..they keep calling me!!! Not sure what to do about this. All of these -pre-screened' callers, etc. continue to call. In November, of last year, my credit score was 600. I had some 'hard' inquries, on my CR ( which I knew about). Those inquries dropped my score to 540. GOSH!! I din't realize a credit score could drop that much!!

i would ALSO like to add, that in early 2008, some of my 'hard' inquiries will come 'drop' from my CR. I also have a few 'closed accounts' that will have a 'drop-off' date, as soon as late this year!! I'm excited about that.!!

That's great!

In Jan, the last of my negative entries will drop off.

How many inquiries were there? 60 points lost to inquiries? I believe it was only 5 points for each hard inquiry. There must have been something else as well at the same time.

Yea..I forgot to say, that's when Cash Call was reported on my credit..as a 'negative' account. I thought I said that..sorry. But, I'm dealing with that, too.

A negative account is the only reason then. soft inquiries never lowers your score.

On the member graph can we fix the dates. I was gonna place mine on there but the latest I could do it was Dec 2006. For the inquiry issue,they are factored in on the new credit slot for Fico and this only counts as 10% overall.Any inquiries over 12 months are no longer counted.Only hard inquiries are counted as they are the only inquiries a potential creditor can view. Soft inquiries are only released on a consumer report to a consumer.

Here is the breakdown of Fico scoring by percent copied from myfico.com.

* Payment history - 35%
* Amounts owed - 30%
* Length of credit history - 15%
* New credit - 10%
* Types of credit used - 10%

I'm STILL confused, on the 'FICO score' thing. Some people are saying, the score is not actually JUST 1 score..it's 3 scores that you average out. OMG..how confusing!! Can someone help??

There is only one FICO...

The catch is that each of the 3 CRA's may have different information on your CR; so your score will vary between each of the three. As for the average of the 3, it's just that--an average of your three different scores. This is why it's important to stay on top of all your CR's. Since a consumer may not know which report will be pulled by a specific creditor, it is necessary to ensure that each report is as positive as can be.

As the CRA's seek to grow their profitability, at least one has developed it's own scoring system, that they can sell to you for $5. In relation to the FICO, it isn't the same, but should be a good indication of what your FICO would look like (you'd just need to do a little math to figure out what the close approximation would be).

Employers are now checking credit scores for employability reasons, will this drop credit scores or does this fall into a different catagory. I was wondering because if this is becoming common practice for employers it could potentially really hurt a persons employability to apply for several jobs and if someone is desperate for employment and completing many job applications at one time, it is a no win situation for the person looking for employment.

What do they mean by "types of credit" ? will one be worse than the other? can you explain more please.

I think employers checking out credit will mess alot of good people out of work and employers will lose out on some pretty qualified people this way. I think a person should be able to explain, it may have been because of health issues or a divorce, who knows these things are sometimes out of ones control.
Do you know if the ones doing the credit checks are giving people the opportunity to explain or are they just eliminating them right from the report? This would be interesting to know.

I don't think it should be used to make a decision unless your job is handling the company financials. I think this will eliminate a lot of good people from the employers choices, especially with all the bad junk being reported about the credit reporting agencies not doing their jobs right. People file disputes and get no resolution to their complaints, credit companies making inquiries and dropping scores and the list of many more reasons not to use this.

I don't know if people get an opportunity to explain or not, probably not because if they are basing the decision on the hiring it probably affects the second interview process too.

I think the last part of your statement is right, I don't think you would get a second interview, sad but true, this is the new way of doing things.

Just another reason to be rebuilding your credit. I don't agree with the practice either, but it is out there.

So you mean that people with bad credit wont get a job? This is unfair. Credit can go haywire due to various reasons not only irresponsibility. No one can decide on that basis. I agree to it if it comes to a financial job but in that case as well it is always fair to inquire the reason before deciding.

Alot of companies are taking a persons credit score into consideration now for hiring, it is becoming common practice, I agree with you Laura, that bad credit could happen for a variety of reasons, they don't give that option to explain they just move on to the next candidate, it is not fair to me either but that is the way some companies are doing it these days. They state that these individuals will be using company credit cards, vehicles and property and they want to know that they can trust these individuals with all this stuff. Fair or not, it is happening.

I don't like this practice at all, I feel for those people who have bad credit because of no fault of thier own, this is not good for the employers either, once the word gets out, a lot of people will not even apply to these companies.

I think people should have a chance to prove themselves, what if someone just had an accident and could not work for a while, it could happen to any of us.

I just hope that the employers will reconsider this practice as they see how it will limit who they have to interview.

Has anyone went and done this yet? I have not, have thought about doing it a few times, but would rather just come in, read the articles and post my answers.

Employers think that your credit whortyness shows what type of person you are not taking in to fact that it may be do to cut backs on prior job or layoffs that caused you to have credit issues .Which is the reason your applying at their company to be able, if hired,to resolve your credit history.

If a hard inquiries drops your score by 2-5 points does it raise it any when it drops off???

A negative drop off definitely raises your score but there are other factors that work when it comes to a rise in score. The account and how it has been treated contributes to the score and its condition.

How long does it take to see this difference in your score.

6 months to a year.

It will take a little while as morning star indicated. If you are in no hurry you can pull a free one from annualcreditreport (dot)com from each of the 3 reporting agencies once a year, doing it a few months apart will show your progress. goodluck with your goals of raising your score.

I also get confused from time to tim about the difference between Fico scores ad your 3 CR scores. Now I also heard somewhere that experians score is the most used by lenders (it would have to be, they rate me the lowest out of the three) Is this true?

If this has been asked, sorry.... Do soft inquiries hurt your credit? I probably have 10 of them and i have no idea who half of these companys are and I would go insane if they were hurting my credit. :shock:

FICO provides a score rating model which are actually used by the three credit rating agencies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion for preparing your credit report. So the score may slightly vary among these three agencies. Soft inquiries does not necessarily negatively affect your credit but inquiries from a collection agency are negative.

Ok...I've known CA's to inquiry about my CR. They can't do that WITHOUT 'your' permission, can they? How can they , legally, do that when you don't know who they are in the first place? Can 'we' STOP this in anyway?

Hi sdchargers_63

I agree with you on this issue. Although it is not obligatory for the creditor to let you know that it is referring your account to a collection agency, your permission is necessary if the collection agency is making a hard inquiry. Hard inquiry does affect your credit score temporarily.

CA always cause people so much stress. I wonder if they can do it without your permission. I know they probaly can. Here I have a collection agency who refuses to quit calling for a pperson who use to have my number. I ask them how many times I have to tell them this is my number and the person doesn't live here. They say they have some "serious spyware equipment" and this is the most recent number they come up with. Sickening

I too don't understand why these CAs create so much problem. I would suggest you to complain against the CA to the FTC if they disturb you again. If you are not the person, why should they harass you.

They do not believe her when she says it is not her, alot of people pick the phone up and act like it is not them, when really it is. goodluck fireyone, it will take a ot of convincing them that it is not really you.

If it were me I would have my number changed.

shortly.very shortly...jopedfully

What are you waiting on???? If it is harrassment then you should be able to get it changed for nothing, the phone company should not charge you a dime.

No I am telling you I have tried that since I moved in here. They will not change it for free. That is why I haven't done anything. I refuse to pay $40 for a crap ass number thye gave me. My luck I would just get another bad one.

Then they should give you annonomys call block free, it will block all un named callers from calling in, you won't even hear the phone ring, try talking to them about that.

That is the best idean I have heard in a long time. Never thought of that. The thing is they don't only call annonoymous. Sometimes there name actually comes up or it is listed as PA.

You are probably going to deal with these ones that shows their names

I usually deal with them by not answering the phone.

yeah me too, especially if the husband is around, he would say that you should pay them, owe it or not, he gives in tooooo easily.

He would tell you to pay them without validating? That seems kind of silly, how does he know that you owe the bill for sure?

Typical male answer. Sounds like my hubby. Just like when I complained that the car broke and someone took out the truck window. Don't worry I get paid next week. What???? May I suggest you take a look at the bills already needing paid, the taxes, the house insurance, fuel, med bills, groceries, gas...Need I say more???????

They just take things much more lightly than we do, but it may be a lot less stressful on us if we thought like them, LOL. I know what you mean, erb and fireyone, mine does not worry about money, but he does get a little pissy if he wants something and the money is not there, that is why sometimes if he does want something I will put something off and get it and not say anything, if there is anything I hate to hear come out of his mouth it is "where does all the money go?"

I don't hear that cause mine knows where it goes. he justs needs to start learning there is actually a subtract button on the calculator.