FICO Forums

[Valerie S. Johnson]

By Valerie S. Johnson

There is no shortage of discussion boards about personal finance (including, of course, the fabulous SavingAdvice.com financial forums located conveniently on the left side of your screen). Last month, the folks at Fair Isaac Corporation joined the fray by hosting online forums (or fora, if you prefer) at the myfico.com website. Fair Isaac is the company best known for its mysterious and omnipotent product, the FICO credit score.

Why is Fair Isaac setting up discussions about its own secretive industry, and who is participating? The myFICO Team says that the forums are moderated by “Fair Isaac scoring experts.” It’s not clear if those people are actual company employees. As for purpose, the forums are provided “as an educational and entertaining platform for people to share their credit knowledge and personal financial experiences with other members.” There are several basic threads, such as understanding FICO credit scoring, using myFICO products, credit reporting, etc., although many posters have placed their entries in random places. It seems that the moderators move only the threads which are completely off topic.

The usual bans on profanity, spam, flaming, and other naughty posting behavior apply. As you might expect, myFICO frowns on people advertising ways to game the credit reporting system: “this is not the place to exchange ‘credit repair’ advice that encourages consumers to provide untrue or misleading information to a credit bureau or lender for the purpose of raising FICO scores or otherwise improving credit ratings, credit histories or record records.” The moderators are quick to remove such noncompliant postings.

The forums are barely a month old, so it will be a while before a more consistent overall character emerges. At this point, it seems there are more uninformed posters asking basic credit questions than there are knowledgeable people – whether they work for myFICO or not – providing solid advice.