The real customers ARE the lenders. Credit reporting agencies were not designed to help a consumer keep track of all their accounts, it was designed to let the lenders decide if a potential customer is credit-worthy.

DUH.

@Tank: You forgot the "and this is hideous and stupid" on the end. Or are you okay with people harvesting your private information, keeping it from you or making you pay to see it, preventing you from modifying it, and then using it to make a shitload of money while screwing up your life?

Me, not so much.

I don't care what compromises they make to put lipstick on the pig of a system that makes it okay for them to harvest private information about me, keep it from me and then make a killing selling it.

It's MY information; I want half the profits. Minimum.

THEN we can talk about credit scores like they're some kind of legitimate business.

@Tank:

What's with the "DUH" when you're saying what was already stated?

@Tank: If we're not their customers, why should we have to pay for our scores? It's our information, not theirs, and they're profiting by selling it. I think, at a minimum, it should be free and on-demand for us to view all credit reporting information about ourselves online. If we aren't their real customers, then that shouldn't be too big a hardship for them.

usual business crap. i'm sure fair isaacs wanted a bigger chunk of the pie & experian is holding out for a renegotiation.

@Mary Marsala with Fries: Totally agreed. What we really need are some strong comprehensive privacy laws, but I doubt we will get that.

@johnva:

Agreed, the FICO score ought to be free to consumers three times a year along with the already free view of our credit reports.

The lenders are the customers but who do you think pays when a credit report is pulled as part of a mortgage application? The consumer pays for that credit score just like all the other fees the consumer pays for a home loan.

@SadSam:

Personally, I don't think it should be just 3 times a year. I think they should have to give us our FICO score and credit report any time we ask for it, for free, and instantly. What we need more of is more people paying close attention to their credit and finances, and the current system makes it cumbersome to do that.

And while you're right that in some cases lenders will pass on the fees (sometimes marked up hugely, I might add), in other cases they don't. I've never paid to apply for a credit card, for example, and they also pull your FICO scores.

I have a question that I think I know the answer to, but that I thought I'd post here to be sure I'm correct. I am enrolled in Experian's score watch program, where you pay a fee every year, and Experian monitors your credit report for any changes, and it alerts you when your score goes down or up. I'm assuming they won't be able to provide me with updates about when my credit score changes anymore due to the parting of ways with Fair Isaac, is that correct?

which is why a lot of people over at Creditboards are freezing their Experian.

I smell a class action brewing...

People should be able to see their entire FICO file and score any time they want to for free. You should also have the right to dispute anything in your records at Fair Issac with some method that gives consumers the benefit of the doubt rather than the sham dispute procedures Experian and some others do. Like many other people I have a fraudulent item on my credit report that I can not get removed thanks to some collection agency scam.

@Mary Marsala with Fries: I'm intrigued by this proposition.

What really makes a piece of information "yours?" Simply because it relates to or describes you?

Not that I'm a huge fan of the credit bureaus. Just sayin'.

@johnva:

The FICO scores aren't your information. They are a number that's generated by taking your information, ie your credit scores, and running it through their proprietary algorithm. Your information - the info they use - is yours, and that is why you are allowed one free report per year. Their algorithm is theirs, and that's why they get to control access to it.

I supposed it could have something to do with Fico '08, but the Fico scores for sale on Myfico.com have never been the "latest" model. The Transunion one is the Classic 98, and the Equifax is a Beacon one from several years ago. As far as I'm aware, there are no plans to offer the newest scores to consumers. Consumers don't even have access to the ones that most lenders use, which is the 03, I think.

@DallasCephalus: As far as I'm aware, Experian doesn't and never did, offer a scorewatch program. Check your MyFico, I think you might mean Equifax.

Of course, if you signed up for monitoring through Experian's site, then that's a different score and service altogether, and it never was a Fico score.

@madanthony: I disagree. Disclosing the number is not even close to the same thing as disclosing their algorithm. They can own the algorithm, but they shouldn't be able to own the number. The number is just an interpretation of data I own.

@pjorg: If this were a society that gave a damn about the privacy of its citizens against corporate intrusion, then YES, it should be, in a sense, "our" data simply because it describes us. Maybe not in an ownership sense, but in the sense that we should have total legal control over how it's used and free access to it at any time, on demand. Now, of course, lenders should be free to not loan us money if we won't disclose our credit history to them, and that's fine. But we should have an absolute right to control how corporations collect and use information stored about us. I want STRONG privacy legislation in this regard, because I think that otherwise the "data mining monster" will destroy democracy.

Now, that's not how America generally works. Right now, corporate interests can collect whatever data they want and sell it to whomever they want with very few legal restrictions.

@bohemian: Sue them if they won't remove it. The law says the burden of proof is on them to prove that it's a valid debt. Additionally, if they haven't been following the proper dispute procedures to the letter, you could probably demand statutory damages, as well. Could be some free money.

@jsboehm79: And that's yet another thing that should be illegal.

Has anyone else noticed that Ben spelled "stoppped" with three p's rather than just 2?

@johnva: I understand, and kind of agree. On the other hand, a lot of the time it's information that is freely available anyway, it's just that they act as a clearinghouse for "one stop shopping."

I think the way to combat this is to stop insisting that consumers provide so much information for even trivial purchases.

johnva: Here is soil information and core samples for the field behind me house. Now, Mr. Mining Assayor, I demand you tell me whether or not to mine for gold, because after all your answer is just an interpretation of data I own.

Doesn't work. The FICO number is a proprietary derivative of a proprietary algorithm. No one can really 'demand' anything, other than the original data held, maybe, depending on the law.

As for the initial post in this thread - I completely agree. Credit bureaus are not focused on consumers - any consumer solicitation (credit freeze, protection services, etc) is a move of opportunity - the core business is and always has been prospective lenders checking up on applicants.

@InThrees: Let's take your analogy further: let's say that the mining assayer guy is now selling that information/assessment about your property to third parties without your knowledge or consent. And makes you pay to know what he's selling them. And the people he is selling it to are using it to try to screw you over in various ways. Now it's closer to the credit situation.

I'm not saying that this is how it is now, but how I think it should be. In this particular case, due to the abuse that has taken place, I think that they should be forced to give up their information for free.

@pjorg: Interesting thing about the "one stop shopping" thing: that's a whole 'nother ball game because of modern data mining techniques. People aren't really aware of this, but data mining can uncover a huge amount of information about you by piecing together disparate sources of information and looking at seemingly innocuous data. For example, as long as they know your zip code, there are MANY ways they can uniquely identify you given other sources of information. Maybe there's no way we can stop this as a practical matter, but I'd like to see our society at least put up some barriers to what information about us can be bought and sold to the highest bidder and how it can be analyzed.

The scores are bullshit anyway. When the credit companies start doing what they are supposed to do (accurate information). And they will never happen. They blatantly break the FDCPA all the time.

Fair Issac is an analytics company that scores the propensity to default on various financial products using data models called scorecards. The FICO score that most people refer to is the FICO-2 model for mortgages but other products use different scorecards (auto loans, credit cards, personal loans). Experian is primarily a CRA - Credit Reporting Agency. As a CRA, Experian collects data from its members, the lenders, about your repayment history. The data is owned by the lenders under an agreement that allows participating lenders to use each others' data for the purpose of assessing risk.

You don't own the data that lenders collect and report to Experian or the other CRAs. Experian does not own the data. Lenders own it, you determine what it says (by paying your bills on time) Fair Issac scores it and Experian stores and reports it.