Credit report: Account balance history visible to inquirers?
Question: I recently obtained a copy of my Experian credit report.
Something I noticed is that the report contains a month-by-month history of each of my account’s balances (e.g. it knows how much I owed on my MasterCard for each month in 2000/2001).
Two questions:
1) Is complete account balance history visible to inquirers, or do they just see a snapshot of current balances?
2) Are past account balances taken into consideration in FICO scoring? The extreme example of this would be if I had all my credit cards max’ed out for 5 years but then paid them all off in one fell swoop – would my FICO score be the same as if I’d had zero balances for that whole time?
Answer: yes, but… what would happen if you had some unforeseen disaster in the family (medical bills that for some reason would not be covered by insurance, for instance) and needed a home equity loan? it’s always best to make sure that your credit records are cleaned up and your score is as high as possible.
OTOH, i think it’s time that “credit scoring” should be outlawed, and especially if it’s used for setting insurance rates. for instance, my mother has excellent credit but her drivers’ license was cancelled after several small accidents and her doctor reported to DMV that she should be tested.
they sent her a notice telling her that if she didn’t come in for the test it would be cancelled. she knew she probably wouldn’t pass the test, so let them cancel the license, but she still owns the car, of which i am now the primary driver.
her insurance rates are low, but only because of her credit rating, not her driving record.
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