Credit Scores

[Sarah in SC]

If you use Mint, they are also offering the score.
I qualify at Barclays to get my score as well.
They are kinda close, as is the one at CreditKarma, which I also use.
And thrice yearly, I check the credit reports.
Like Fuego and athena, I am an active mileage hound for various cards, so have to keep up with it a bit more than most folks.

 

[RetiredAndFree]

Yes and No. It's up there, but we have not financed anything in over 20 years, nor can I envision us ever doing so again, so it's pretty much a non-issue for us in FIRE.

We live in a state that prohibits usage of credit or financial scores for insurance rate setting purposes, so no issue there either.

 

[mickeyd]

I never cared what my CS was until a few years ago I applied for a 0% loan with Toyota for a new car that I was planning to pay cash for. I was advised I had a FICO score of something like 828. Guy at the dealership said that this was the 2nd highest score that he had ever seen.

Discover has my updated score on the website. last time (only time) I checked it was around 830. I don't plan on taking a loan soon so the score is kinda wasted on me.

Anyone care to buy it from me?

Let the bidding begin.

 

[jonc]

Senator's right. There are many variants of the Fair Isaac Company credit score. Aside from all the rebranded "scores," FICO itself changes the game once in awhile.

FICO announced this calendar year that the new version of their scoring algorithm - version 9 - will be available to credit reporting agencies.

FICO Score 9 Introduces Refined Analysis of Medical Collections - FICO


Under FICO 8, my score is 832 or 834 depending on which credit reporting agency you ask.

Under FICO 9 - which isn't being used by any of the BIG THREE yet - my score will drop 28 points across the board. I got this info by paying a small fee to http://www.myfico.com to discover what v9 will do to my credit score.

Oh, and I check mine annually.

-Jon

 

[kimcdougc]

Yes and yes. Mine is 826 an DH is 816. Excellent by Fico standards.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I check my score on occasion through Credit Karma just to make sure nothing is amiss. I have all my credit frozen and when I last applied for a card I was able to give the CSR my pin and they could "thaw" it for just that transaction. I didn't notice until today that you can "compare" your score with other members. I figured my score was pretty good, but not this much better than my peers!

 

[Amethyst]

Your young age (36-40) likely has something to do with it. A similar score for an older age group does not get the same amazing percentile

(Could that mean deadbeats don't live as long?)

Amethyst

I check my score on occasion through Credit Karma just to make sure nothing is amiss. I have all my credit frozen and when I last applied for a card I was able to give the CSR my pin and they could "thaw" it for just that transaction. I didn't notice until today that you can "compare" your score with other members. I figured my score was pretty good, but not this much better than my peers!

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Your young age (36-40) likely has something to do with it. A similar score for an older age group does not get the same amazing percentile

(Could that mean deadbeats don't live as long?)

Amethyst

Ha! I don't really give too much credence to credit scoring anyway. One of the areas they score are credit utilization. I was recently scored a "C" in this category since I had an overall credit available line of $130K'ish but was only showing that my balances were only about $400 and so my utilization was actually TOO LOW. That's just crazy in my opinion!

The only reason I even care about it is for insurance prices as well as taking advantage of good credit (cash back) CC offers. If all goes well, I will have made around $1,000 this year in cash back/new customer promotions.

I do assume this might change a bit...I am not so sure that Amex would have approved me for the platinum card if I was retired with a good reduction in reported income.