No need to be humble, when you're absolutely right.
It's a scam & nothing more.
Like the time in 2007 ? when I got a letter from my Insurance agent, stating that because my FICO score wasn't perfect, they couldn't give me the best rate.
I went right down to the office & almost tore his head off.
I told him straight up, listen up *******, I've had a home, at least one car, & a motorcycle insured for over 30 years without a claim, never paid late, & you're going to use some BS like this!
I'm not really a confrontational type, but this pissed me off so bad, I just totally went off on the guy.
Because many others responded the same way, they dropped that asinine practice shortly thereafter.
Wow - you do realize that the insurance agent is merely punching in your data into the insurer's database, and out pops the cost of insurance that the company tells them they must charge, right? Your agent isn't sitting at a computer with a calculator in hand, punching in numbers to compute what they will decide to charge you. I'm sure people like you make his day. At least he has a story to tell about the guy that lost it because a computer 2,000 miles away told him something he didn't like, then took it out on the agent, who has absolutely no control over it whatsoever.
And do you realize that models have shown (with hard data) that people with higher credit scores, on average, have lower claims than people who don't? Imagine that - if someone isn't able to manage their credit as well as people who do, it kind of does make sense that they probably also can't manage their lives as well, and would probably also be somewhat careless when driving, or living and maintaining a home.
FICO and other credit scores are just a way for the credit bureaus to generate more income from the trove of data they've accumulated, so I expect weirdness. I have a report that says my credit history of 30 yrs is too short and holding my score down. IMHO it's a scam.
I'm honestly shocked at how many negative replies there are about the FICO score. Just what do people suggest they use?!?!?! Should it be an honor system like apartment rental applications, where the credit card and mortgage companies are supposed to ask applicants for a self-reported credit history? (like many people would even track things like average monthly balances, or even know what their max credit is on a card, etc.) Do you honestly think something like self-reporting (other than a FICO-type score) would ever work, for a system that deals with thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars with each individual? How would you determine who gets to pay lower interest rates? Or do you think everyone should simply be charged the same rate - either sky high to account for defaults, or everyone sings kumbayah and is only charged 1% over inflation because everyone should be nice and live in Utopia, and when people default - people just sing a little louder to drown out the lenders that are left holding the bag?
Is FICO perfect? Of course not. Does it predict the future? No, it shows - with a single numerical result - the ODDS/LIKELIHOOD of the applicant in managing their loan, based on their past history. Finance companies understand that, yes, some of those with FICO scores of 800+ WILL default....but the % of 800+ that default will be a rounding error compared to those with a FICO score of under 500 who default.
You could have someone personally looking at every single application, and the credit history of every single person who ever applies for a credit card/mortgage/etc.....if people don't mind paying 1%-3% more in interest rate to pay for a human to scan every applicant's credit history. And the funny thing is that the human would wind up doing (in one form or another) the very same thing that the FICO score computes - what the applicant's use of credit has been like based on their past accounts and spending patterns.
And in fact, I'm sure that there would be people suing for discrimination for one form or another if a human actually did the reviewing on a case-by-case basis, rather than a computer program that simply uses pure data with no possible human influence or bias.
) so YMMV.
