Category: Wikipedia

credit score, utilization ratio, Wikipedia reference to USA TODAY, unverified

SEE ORIGINAL EMAIL TO USA TODAY

From: Block, Sandra
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 11:47 AM
To: ‘greg@creditscoring.com’
Subject: RE: credit score, utilization ratio, Wikipedia reference to USA TODAY

http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/WhatsInYourScore.aspx

Sandra Block
Personal Finance Reporter
USA TODAY
You can find my stories and columns at: http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/reporter.aspx?id=561
Follow me at:
http://twitter.com/sandyblock

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 12:51 PM
To: Sandra Block, reporter, personal finance, USA TODAY
Subject: RE: credit score, utilization ratio, Wikipedia reference to USA TODAY, unverified

SEE https://blog.creditscoring.com/?tag=usa-today-ratio.

That document does not verify your statement.  In it, 30% is a number assigned to an entire category called “Amounts Owed.” 6 items comprise the category.  For instance, one is “Number of Accounts with Balances,” and has nothing to do with the ratio of debt to available credit.  “Proportion of credit lines used (proportion of balances to total credit limits on certain types of revolving accounts)” is only one item in the category and is listed fifth.

What correction will you make?

 

credit score, utilization ratio, Wikipedia reference to USA TODAY

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 11:25 AM
To: Sandra Block, reporter, personal finance, USA TODAY
Subject: credit score, utilization ratio, Wikipedia reference to USA TODAY

THIS MESSAGE IS PUBLISHED AT https://blog.creditscoring.com/?p=1727.

You wrote, “The amount of debt you have outstanding, as a percentage of your available credit limit, accounts for 30% of your score.”

However, Fair Isaac explains that, to avoid misleading the public, it does not make such a claim.

Wikipedia uses your story containing that sentence as a reference regarding “30% — Credit utilization.”

Who is your source?

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

creditscoring.com question invalidates Wikipedia

On July 19, 2010, Fair Isaac responded to an inquiry by creditscoring.com regarding odd, inconsistent claims about the FICO credit score distribution.  Fair Isaac responded that its distribution chart was out of date and would be replaced.  The Associated Press did not reply.

The FICO score company removed the chart, but has not replaced it, and that has made Wikipedia’s article Credit score (United States) unverified for months.  In fact, it still states, “A FICO score is between 300 and 850, exhibiting a left-skewed distribution with 60% of scores near the right between 650 and799.[12]”

Wikipedia’s footnote #12 is a link to a page that supported the statement with a chart illustrating a bell curve distribution.  However, there is no longer anything about 650 or 799 on the Fair Isaac page, so that eliminates Wikipedia’s verification of its claim about the distribution.

Meanwhile, the Wikipedians argue over crucial issues like cheap vs. inexpensive, and, of course, the lots/a lot controversy that was infinitely more important than correcting the distribution reference.

A previous error by Wikipedia regarding credit scores lasted for 654 days.

Wikipedia looks like an encyclopedia, but is really just a message board.  Just ask Tyler.

Wikipedia Credit Karma/FICO baloney

The 4-year mess continues.  But, how long will it take the collective brain of the world to figure out this one?

Genius 99.23.41.118 contributes:  “Credit Karma will provide the FICO score from TransUnion for free, but will not provide the actual credit report.”

But, as any idiot can see, at the “wiki” about Credit Karma:

Credit Karma provides users with a proprietary credit score model. The scoring is on a scale of 300 to 850 which is the same scale as FICO Score from Fair Issac Corporation.

And, what a coincidence!  The Credit Karma score scale is exactly the same as the FICO!  No wonder the wiki is whack. 

The editors were duped again by just another Fake-O flim flam.

Credit score myth on Wikipedia dies after 654 days

New encyclopedia game contestant Kat Malone removed Wikipedia’s 678 credit score myth on May 22, 2009, after it stood for one year and 9 months.

The user challenged the 678 myth in the Wikipedia article “Credit score (United States)” with the deadly wiki “citation needed” flag.

Other important and controversial changes in the wiki include capitalizing the word corporation, and that the FICO score scale is between “300 and 800 (per Barack Obama),” “300 and 850,” and “300 and 800 (change it back, I dare you).”

The wiki is a top-ten result for the term credit score at search engines Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

Website creditscoring.com covers the wiki folly and wiki myth at “Influence: Media, Wikipedia” and “Fake-O FICO Funk.”  The credit score website’s author even traveled to San Francisco to alert Wikipedia in person, but was unsuccessful because Wikipedia’s headquarters address is secret.