PART ONE
The Credit Scoring Site
A bleak account
Google
Web     creditscoring.com     creditaccuracy.com
 


PART TWO
creditaccuracy.com
Dirty Data

creditscoring.com
in the media

HowStuffWorks
Clark Howard
Federal Reserve
Chicago Tribune
Christian Science Monitor
Columbus Dispatch
Augusta Chronicle
Bankrate.com
Bankrate.com
Realty Times
Realty Times
Newsweek
Nolo
Nolo: Credit Repair
About.com
MoneyCentral Radio
The Detroit News, July 17, 2000
Money Maze Radio
USA Today Hot Site, 9/17/98
How to get your credit reports



Fair Isaac defines subprime as, generally, less than 640 FICO score
CNBC interviews Fair Isaac CEO about mortgage borrowers; message clashes with those of agencies.

In an interview with CNBC on 2/26/2009, Fair Isaac CEO Mark Greene said, "And in case of the subprime, that's particularly true because the subprime population, which is, generally, a FICO score of less than 640, those are the folks that were aggressively pursued by some of these institutions who were given loans that are now in the process of resetting to unaffordable rates."





The 640 FICO broad brush (-off)

It is not so cut-and-dried. Conflicting with the FICO chief's contention of a 640 standard, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines two "Sub-Prime" categories below 660: 580 to 619, and 620 to 659.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), part of HUD's Office of Housing, announced implementation of risk-based premiums for single family mortgage insurance effective July, 2008. An accompanying chart has tiers based on FICO scores:

850-680
679-640
639-600
599-560
559-500
499-300

In March, 2008, a federal government notice regarding the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program stated, "The purpose of this Administrative Notice (AN) is to affirm 620 as the minimum Fair Isaacs & Company (FICO) credit score required for applicants to utilize streamlined documentation for manually underwritten guaranteed loans."

Other FICO score benchmarks in that notice: "619 and below," "580 and below" and "no FICO score."

In a subsequent notice of clarification the USDA gives another benchmark: Borrowers with FICO scores of "660 and higher."

Conventional loan mortgage insurance company MGIC announced 2/19/09 that, effective 3/9/09, it requires a 680 minimum FICO score in non-restricted markets. Another MI company, RMIC, states, "The minimum loan representative FICO score for loans with an LTV/CLTV less than or equal to 95% is 680... " (see caveats).

See What is a good credit score? for other opinions.


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Also, on PART TWO, creditaccuracy.com:

Information about your free annual credit report

creditscoring.com and creditaccuracy.com author's public comment submitted to the Federal Reserve

LexisNexis fiasco, ChoicePoint debacle



April, 1997: "Information on how to obtain one's credit score is suspiciously absent from your site. How do I get mine?"

"And we're not running a game show. I mean, we're evaluating risk. We're not trying to have people get--achieve the highest score."

"Fisher is a fan of going by the book and then beyond it."

"He beat the scoring proponents to the punch by scooping up the web address http://www.creditscoring.com, from which he launches often strident, sometimes wacky, but usually well-documented attacks on the credit-scoring concept and the industries that support it."

Realty Consumers Empowered By Online "Peoples" Court - "His Web site CreditScoring.com helped him-- and millions of other consumers-- extend fair credit reporting rights to credit scoring information."

"Fisher operates the www.creditscoring.com Web site, which skewers the secrecy of the credit bureaus and Fair, Isaac." - The Detroit News

CreditScoring.com is an exceptionally-interesting site that offers news and information regarding credit scoring and-- really-- the entire credit process."