I’ve been using ClearScore for about a year, mainly to check that the details held on me are accurate. Initially I found and corrected a few issues that were either missing or out of date, and that’s helped to improve my score from 484 to 558.
What I don’t understand is what’s needed to (theoretically) max out my score. The ‘Factors on your report’ section highlights 11 positive factors and 0 negatives:
Positive 11
You have no Court or Insolvency data
You have no accounts in Default or Repossession
You have been on the Electoral Roll at your current address for a long time
You have made very few applications for credit in the past year
You have held at least one of your accounts for several years
You have very few / no accounts in arrears
Your largest credit card limit is relatively high
You have stayed within your credit card limit in the past year
Your total credit card % utilisation is relatively low
You have very few / no secured loans or mortgages that have been in arrears
Your current Telecoms balance is relatively low
So I guess I’m asking what factors others have that might improve my ‘score’?
There are many historic factors that are taken into consideration. If anything bad happened in last 6 years will hugely damage your rating. You just have to wait it out for them.
Sure, but those would show up as negative factors right? I have no negative factors showing, which to me suggests that I’m short of positive factors to boost my score.
Note that numeric credit scores are totally arbitrary and are calculated by your credit report provider (ClearScore, etc) based on their own rules. In reality the credit bureaus don’t have a concept of “score”, they just give all that’s on your report to whoever’s asking and paying for it and it’s up to them to make sense of it and decide whether they should lend you money.
and one credit firm I worked for had different credit scoring systems for different products, so on one your profession, marital status and postcode had most impact but on another it was your salary, number of dependents and number of similar credit accounts that had more bearing
Yeah, I’m aware of that, but humour me, I often have hours to kill at work and a little tweaking here and there isn’t gonna hurt, and may work in my favour in getting a better deal on future financial products
I’m interested in what influences my score on this website. I’m keen to know what other positive factors others may have that might increase this ‘score’.
I’m just killing some free time at work. It’s no biggie.
Its certainly a positive that you have those and using them correctly but a credit card generally give you a credit line which higher than bill and utilities credit. For example, my Smile Credit Card started out at £1,000 limit in 2009 and now it is at £7,300 limit yet I only use £400 on the card give or take. That means banks know I am safe to lend money too as I don’t blow the £7k because I have it. Your 1 negative give me 3 positives. I generally use a credit card to either snooze interest or for protection under the Consumer Credit Act on purchases over £100.
Again, its all about how you use accounts not the actual score. The score is created by the credit agencies and NO ONE sees it but you.
It seems that they have no record of you paying your bills. My Telecoms bill (and my credit card) got picked up by ClearScore when I told them that I’d held the same bank account for 25 years. I had to ask First Direct to release this info, which then increased my score.
Except that you might earn £16,000 a year and have a credit limit of £7,300. Some institutions might feel offering more credit that would take you over 50% of your annual income is high risk and decline any application. So it’s based on a number of factors, all of which are secret to the institution offering the credit and subjective to the type of person they want as a customer. Hence your ‘score’ means jack, because the credit reference agency doesn’t know about each institution’s criteria for lending.
Yeah, I’m also 999 with Experian. But Experian don’t seem to disclose as much info (positive and negative factors) as ClearScore, and it’s these factors I’m interested in.
Such as: Does a mobile phone contract have any effect? It’s a form of credit so I imagine it would, but as I use a work mobile I have no idea.
Most consumer-grade mobile providers do report to credit bureaus but given that you use a work phone that won’t count as it’s in the name of your company instead of yourself (as well as the fact that most business-grade providers couldn’t care less about credit scores).
This is mind blowing!!! The score makes no difference! What!!!
It occurs to me if companies simply stated what they were looking for in advance it would save a lot of hastle! Then at least you know if your profile/ history doesn’t match you just wouldn’t apply.
