I got in some credit trouble about 9 years ago. I have spent the last 8 years really trying to get my credit back because we want to buy a house.
A couple of years ago I signed up for the experian.com aka (creditexpert.com). I have been paying 9.99/month for 1 1/2 years and about 6 months ago they raised it to 14.95/month. I was ok with because I can go in anytime and run my report and see if anything is wrong.
The thing that boggled me was that for some reason I just could not get my score up. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. If I go back to 5/31/08 my score was a 606 and today it shows a 656. I have 1 bad thing that is still reporting but it is a medical bill and should be coming off by the end of the year.
I have 3 paid off car loans and never once missed a payment. I have a discover card, and other credit cards that I have never missed a payment on. If you look at my summary from them it shows that I have 80% of my credit is currently available. I only owe $3,000 on all of my credits and I owe $6,000 on my car. That's it!
So I took my car and sold it outright and paid off that car loan. My car was getting up there in miles and wanted to sell it before it dropped in price. I used to drive alot of miles to get to my job.
I now work from home a few days a week so finding another vehicle was not a priority because I have access to another vehicle when needed. I started to look around for the best deals and I found a pretty good deal that Dodge was running.
So I went down to the dealership and haggled with them for awhile and once we agreed on a price. I went ahead and filled out the credit application.
They ran my credit and then I noticed they were pretty much bending over backwards to do what I wanted. Then when I was in the finance guys office signing the paperwork he said to me "Most people would Kill for your credit score". That really caught me off guard!
I then proceeded to ask him what my score was and who do they use. He said I have a 720 credit score and they use Experian! What!!! Did he just tell me that I am a 720 and I have been busting my butt trying to get a better score for years and paying this company all this money and they have been wrong this whole time!
I was so angry that I have been freaking out for years why I can't get my score up and I am sitting on a 720. Sleepless night trying to figure out how to get it up because we want to buy a house and my partners credit score is a 770 and I am sucking because I only have a 656.
I called to cancel the account and believe it our not she said because I have a longtime member that they were going to give me a free month! Are you freaking kidding me! Why would I ever stay with your company and continue to pay for something that is wrong and has been wrong for years.
I want my money back! How can I go about this? I know their terms & conditions say no money back or refunds. That should only pertain if they were giving me the correct info! I can see a 10 point different but a 64 point difference is not acceptable.
That is a huge difference in interest rate for cars, mortgages etc... I could have bought a house a year ago when the market was really down but we didn't because I didn't have the credit score!
Shame on them! They owe me so much more than just my money back!
Jeanski
Hamburg,#2Consumer Comment
Fri, May 14, 2010
I think you got screwed. I think something similar happened to me when I was mortgage shopping. My banker explained that different companies pulling your report might use a slightly different formula (or use different aspects of your report) to compute your score. I'm not sure how true that is, but it might explain part of the difference.