Noddle Credit Score

A question about : Noddle Credit Score

For quite a while now my scored with Noddle has been 5/5, combined with the fact that I know nothing has really changed in terms of my credit, payments etc it has meant that I have only been giving my credit report a cursory glance,

New report was available yesterday and my score had gone down to 4/5, I couldn't think of any immediate reason so I thoroughly checked my report, couldn't see any real changes although I have opened a new current account (kept the old one) and my credit card usage has reduced significantly but there are no nasties.

So although credit scores don't mean anything in the real world the fact that mine changed made me check my report in more detail that I would normally so perhaps it's not a bad thing to know how the CRA rate you. Conversely the fact the the score dropped 20% with no significant change in circumstances does question the scoring process.

In future I should probably just check the report in more detail regardless of the score. It hasn't made me want to pay for my score though, I'll stick to stat reports for the other two, if I'm paying for them I'll read them.

Best answers:

• There could be a couple of factors.
  Firstly, there have been some changes lately by either the government or the governing bodies about how lenders should rate customers (especially in view of possible interest rate rises next year) and this has been passed on to CRA's, so adjustments have been made as to how credit worthy you are or could be in the future.
  Secondly, you have made an application for a new current account and if this was with a different bank, then they would have carried out a search and this 'ridiculously so' (especially in your situation) has had a negative impact on your file.
• You will have been credit checked for the current account. That can give a temporary drop on your file.
• Mine flits between 4/5 and 5/5 for unknown reasons. Provided all the other info is up-to-date and correct I just ignore it.
• The noddle credit score is bonkers to me. Yes, I know the scores are made up but the CRA's could try to be a little consistent.
  My noddle one has just gone from 1/5 to 2/5 - it's been 1/5 for as long as I've been signed up to noddle.
  My Experian one is "fair" and Equifax is "good" - Considering these places hold your financial life in their hands, it'd be nice to think they were all singing from the same hymn sheet.
  Having just paid off a chunk of debt, I wanted to see how the CRA's reflected that in their scoring model.... I wish I'd put that Ј10 to another use now.
• My new current account is with Nationwide and they don't do a search with CallCredit although they do report to them, there are no searches at all on my CallCredit report, same can't be said for Experian as Nationwide did search them. Also got declined a card with Amex, again only searched Experian, no search on Equifax for them. Although you can see what I mean about it making me read my reports in a bit more detail. So long as it's all correct it doesn't really bother me.
• My Noddle 'score' is 4, not that it matters in any way obviously but it has been like that for at least 9 months. I'm jealous of those that have frequent 'score' fluctuations for seemingly no or little reason
• Looking through CallCredits (Noddle) business pages, I notice that they offer businesses i.e. lenders a service whereby they can quickly and easily see a consumers credit score, as defined by callcredit, 'a snapshot of their file and credit worthiness'. Its called 'Gauge'.
  This is actually a service offered to lenders by callcredit and fits in with what I've been told by someone who used to work at a lenders as a way that some lenders do a 'soft search', to see how CRA's view them.
  Therefore, contrary to what some people think, these CRA credit scores do mean something to lenders and not meaningless as I suspected.
  https://www.callcredit.co.uk/press-of...-bureau-scores
  Taken from site:
  "Gauge has been developed exclusively for Callcredit by DecisionMetrics and provides lenders with a fast, objective and consistent measurement of the credit risk associated with their customers"
• In that case they are at best a factor.
  Can you give us some examples of lenders and which financial products they use it for? It's realistically not going to be anything other than for small amounts of credit over 12 months on insurance, is it?
• I really wouldn't know, all I know is what I've read on Callcredits website but they seem quite proud of what it can do and how powerful it is, so I would be surprised if it wasn't used for a lot more than that.
  They say; "Credit reference agency Callcredit and DecisionMetrics, the UK's leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, today announce the launch of Gauge, a powerful next-generation suite of credit risk scores".
• Having also googled it, this report is 6 years old and there's nothing saying they use the Noddle credit score.
• I've just checked Experian and it seems unfortunately they do provide these scores to lenders:
  "Experian monitors the customer file for significant events. If one is detected, the customer is re-scored using the Delphi for Customer Management scorecards. A file is then passed back from Experian containing the events and the new scores on either a weekly or monthly basis".
  "The Delphi for New Business scoring models are designed to predict the likelihood that a new applicant for credit will become a good payer if accepted. They are used by over 150 leading UK financial institutions generating in excess of 70 million scores each year".
  There is loads more information on their site about their scores (if you look under their business section) and from what i've read, it appears unfortunately that CRA's are even more powerful than I feared. This is scary reading.
• The other way their scores are used, is lenders can ask CRA's (or look themselves) for a list of people with a score range of say 200-300 or 400-500 etc so that they can offer them certain products, which is why lenders who you have never used before suddenly write to you and tell you you have been pre-approved for Јx's credit.
  So credit scores are far from meaningless i'm afraid.