Credit Scores

Yesterday, I paid to get my credit score from TransUnion. The other two are Equifax and Experian. Not too long ago, Equifax sent me a credit report and score and so I know what they say my score is. When I tell my friends, family, and coworkers those scores, they say they're not too bad (either not much lower or even higher than most of their scores).

Last week, I applied for a loan through my bank. They denied me, saying the three factors are credit score, work history, and credit history. I assumed they denied me because of my credit history, because while I've worked hard to make it better than it once was it's still not stellar. A few credit cards I paid off are still on there (and will be for a few more years) and my school loans still reflect that until about two-and-a-half years ago I was deferring them. Okay, I can live with that. I will continue to work on my credit until I reflect two years of payments and trust - a requirement the loan officer said I would need.

But then. Today I received a letter from my bank saying they wanted me to know my credit score. And it was a hundred points lower than the one I paid for yesterday. That's not ten points. That's not twenty points. A hundred points. It says on the back of the letter that if I want to dispute any claims on this report, I need to call the agency that reported it. According to the letter, it was TransUnion, the agency I bought my score from yesterday. I am pissed.

I will call them. I'm off on Friday so I can wake up, have my coffee and eggs, get my blood going, get a shower, sit down, and call them. I will ask them why my bank received a credit score one hundred points lower than the one I paid for. If they tell me the one the bank received is the accurate one, I will ask them for my money back. And then I will cry, because the one I received, the one I paid for, reflects everything I've been trying to accomplish in the past few years. The other one, the one one hundred points lower, is actually worse than the score I got a few years ago, before I even started paying off all these debts.

It's obvious that the car company and the rental office must have received the lower score. It's the only reasoning behind my inability to get anything, anywhere. If that lower score is my real score, I might as well consign myself to being stuck here, again, for eternity.