Comment by sofixa
3 years ago
Yeah, "checking your credit" doesn't exist, really, outside of the US. When making loan decisions, your income and loan totals/history are the main things considered, not an arbitrary score by private third parties that couldn't keep the data safe if their lives depended on it.
A credit score is determined by your loan totals/history.
Every lender needs to assess credit-worthiness in some way, and they resort to the very similar schemes, with minor procedural differences based on cultural factors and historical accident.
Except that credit scores in the US include things such as evictions and credit card use, scores going down if you repay a loan in full and other bullshit, which a random bank determining your credit worthiness in France doesn't do. They ask for proof of income, check with Banque de France if you have outstanding debts or if you have failed debt payments, and that's it.
Evictions are not reported on a credit history report.
There is no single credit score in the US. Anyone can calculate whatever they want from a credit history.
There is no requirement for a lender to negatively view a borrower’s decision to buy pay off a loan. In fact, I doubt any even do.
Using a credit card is borrowing money, hence shows up on a credit report.
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A lender or seller does not have to use any specific credit score. Many businesses calculate their own credit score based on borrowing/repayment history, and some do not calculate a score at all.