Martin Lewis dismisses common credit score myth: ‘Forget it’

Martin Lewis dismisses common credit score myth: 'Forget it'ITV, This Morning

Transcript

00:00You do not have a single number that represents your credit score

00:04or your credit rating.

00:05There's no such thing as a credit blacklist.

00:07Now, of course, if you're a bad risk, many firms will reject you.

00:10You'll feel like there's a blacklist, but there isn't a blacklist.

00:13Now, I know there'll be people out there going,

00:15what are you talking about? I've paid for my credit score.

00:17I know what my credit score is.

00:18What happens is, the three credit reference agencies,

00:22Equifax, Experian and TransUnion,

00:24years ago, some clever guy there or clever woman there went,

00:27you know what, we're only making money from companies.

00:29We could sell consumers their information

00:32in a much fancier format and get them to pay for it.

00:35And that's what happened.

00:36So, your credit score that you get from those agencies

00:38is useful as a rough indication of how a typical lender may see you.

00:44But it doesn't actually feed in in full to how lenders credit score.

00:49They do their own modelling.

00:51So, what I would say, I get loads of people who say,

00:53my credit score's just dropped by three points from 972 to 969.

00:57Should you be worried? And I'm like, forget it.