In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the three major credit reporting agencies -- Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion -- are offering free access to online credit reports, weekly, until April 2021.
Equifax Data Breach: Reason for Bizarre Credit Score Declines?
Seldom do I use my one and only personal credit card, provided by Citi®, so I was thinking that maybe the reason my TransUnion® and Equifax® credit scores, which use the VantageScore 3.0 scoring model, both experienced sudden and precipitous declines was because I was being penalized for:
Too Few Accounts Currently Paid As Agreed: FICO® Scores consider the number of accounts that are paid as agreed. Your score was impacted because the number of these accounts is too low, or because you've missed payments recently on some of your accounts.
No recent revolving balances: FICO Scores consider whether a person’s credit report shows recent balances on revolving accounts. Your FICO® Score was impacted because you are not currently demonstrating active revolving credit management.
Seems unreasonable to me that a consumer should be penalized for avoiding revolving credit, but that's the system folks (The above bullet points are from Citi / FICO / Equifax Bankcard Score 8.)
So, on a recent check, my scores bounced back to 800+. A glitch in the system, or related to the Equifax Data Breach?
Credit Scores: TransUnion and Equifax VantageScore 3.0
And my Citi / FICO / Equifax Bankcard Score 8 score skipped higher, from 820 to 822.
So, according to both CreditKarma.com and CreditSesame.com, my VantageScore 3.0
credit scores from TransUnion® and Equifax® dropped more than 80 points, and for no reason.
Credit Scores: TransUnion and Equifax VantageScore 3.0
So I visited www.AnnualCreditReport.com to check my credit reports from the 3 major bureaus: TransUnion, Equifax and ExperianTM:
TransUnion: I was able to access and download my credit report. I found no problems.
Equifax: Fail; online delivery not available (see image below.)
This website is neither affiliated nor associated with The United States Federal Reserve
in any way. Information in this website is provided for educational purposes only. The owners
of this website make no warranties with respect to any and all content contained within this
website. Consult a financial professional before making important decisions related to any
investment or loan product, including, but not limited to, business loans, personal loans,
education loans, first or second mortgages, credit cards, car loans or any type of insurance.
