Beyond the Credit Score: Other Ways Credit Card Companies Evaluate You as a Customer

We all know that lenders use our credit scores to evaluate us and our "credit worthiness," but there are also less-known ways credit card companies are keeping tabs on us. Credit Sesame points out five of these additional scores, including one that monitors your spending behavior.

According to the article posted on Business Insider, lenders use these unofficial scores to determine who gets bonus offers or other incentives and who gets turned down for a card or their accounts limited.

The "Behavior Score" flags not just how much you're spending, but where you shop as well:

"For example, if you normally shop at high-end stores and regularly pay off your card, and then suddenly start shopping at discount stores and carrying a balance, the lender could use this behavior data as an indicator that you have become higher risk and could take steps to minimize its exposure," says [CreditSesame CEO] Nazari. "Alternatively, if your behavior data indicates you are a good risk but you aren't generating a profit, an issuer might determine how to incentivize spending."

To improve that score, CreditSesame says, you need to improve things like late payments and fees and also be careful with triggers like long-term credit card activity.

Another score, the "Attrition Score" (a.k.a., the "Wandering Eye" score) can work to your advantage.

It's how lenders decide how likely it is that you'll "cheat" on them with another competitor. "When this score is high, it tells lenders that they may need to sweeten the pot and offer you various perks so they can continue to make you happy and committed," Nazari says.

Things like calling to request a lower interest rate could get your credit card issuer to pay more attention to you.

Check out the full post for other things about you lenders are watching (most of them are mitigated by good credit score habits and keeping an eye on your score).

Five Little-Known Ways Credit Lenders Keep Their Eye On You | Business Insider

Photo by Michael D Brown (Shutterstock)

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/yiPVxDIciPY/beyond-the-credit-score-other-ways-credit-card-companies-evaluate-you-as-a-customer

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