ATLANTA–Equifax has confirmed it sent the erroneous credit scores to lenders of all asset sizes on people applying for auto loans, mortgages and credit cards and more during mid-March through early April of this year.
The confirmation did not break out separately how many credit unions may have been affected.
Equifax said the scores were sometimes off by 20 points or more in either direction, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke with the Wall Street Journal. The incorrect information was sufficient to alter the interest rates consumers were offered or to result in their applications being rejected altogether, the report stated.
The company began disclosing the errors to lenders in May, the sources indicated.
Equifax said it has since fixed the error, which the company described as a “technology coding issue.” The glitch didn’t alter the information in consumers’ credit reports, according to the company.
CEO Responds
“We have determined that there was no shift in the vast majority of scores during the three-week timeframe of the issue,” Sid Singh, president of Equifax’s U.S. Information Solutions, said in a statement. “For those consumers that did experience a score shift, initial analysis indicates that only a small number of them may have received a different credit decision.”
According to the Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter, the error affected many lenders across multiple consumer loan products, not just mortgages,
The percentage of incorrect scores provided to lenders varied, sources told the Journal. At one big bank, for example, 18% of applicants during the three-week period had incorrect scores, with an average swing of eight points, one of the people said.
Several-Thousand Affected at 1 Lender
“Equifax told one large auto lender that about 10% of applicants during the three-week period had inaccurate scores, according to a person familiar with the matter,” the Journal reported. “Of those, several thousand saw a change of 25 points or more on their credit score, the person said. In a small number of cases, applicants went from having no credit score at all to a score in the 700s—or vice versa, the person said. The most widely used credit scores range between 300 to 850; the higher the credit score, the more likely an applicant will get approved and at a lower interest rate.”
Equifax’s Singh said in the statement the company has been working closely with lenders and providing them with updated scores,