Consumer’s Fight for Truth About Credit Scores

It was in the course of those conversations that an increasing number of consumers started hearing about FICOs and credit scores. For the first time, people learned that the reason they did or didn’t get the loan they wanted was because of a three-digit number. It became obvious that lenders were putting a lot of stock in these mysterious scores.

But when consumers tried asking for more details, they often hit a brick wall. Fair Isaac, the leader in the credit-scoring world, wanted to keep the information secret. The company said it worried that consumers wouldn’t understand the nuances of credit scoring, or they would try to “game the system” if they knew more. Fair Isaac feared that its formulas would lose their predictive ability if consumers started changing their behavior to boost their scores.