Before the 1950s, credit depended on loan officers judging character, family background and even a customer’s suit. In 1958 engineer Bill Fair and mathematician Earl Isaac created the first scoring algorithms, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 and its 1976 expansion pushed banks toward computer scoring as a legal shield, though critics say inputs tied to wealth and zip codes carried old bias forward. Freddie Mac’s 1995 requirement of scores for new mortgages made them a household necessity. FICO weighs payment history at 35 percent, amounts owed at 30, length of history at 15, credit mix at 10 and new credit at 10, and ignores income, savings, age and employment.

Consumers have over 60 scores because Experian, Equifax and TransUnion hold different data, FICO issues versions from FICO 8 to 10T along with auto and bank card scores, and the bureaus’ own VantageScore, created in 2006, was cleared in 2025 for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages. The CFPB estimates 26 million Americans have no credit record and 19 million more are unscorable. A CFPB study with the RAND Corporation found credit builder loans helped people with no debt but lowered scores for those already in debt, almost 40 percent of whom paid late. A January 2025 CFPB rule removing medical debt from credit reports was vacated by a federal court in July 2025 as exceeding its authority under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

• FICO counts rate-shopping inquiries within a 14 to 45 day window as a single inquiry.
• A higher credit limit lowers utilization and can lift a score with no change in spending.
• The CFPB fined Equifax and TransUnion $23 million over recurring fees and misstated educational scores.
• The 2017 Equifax breach exposed data on 147 million people and led to a $575 million settlement.
• TransUnion mislabeled some consumers as suspected terrorists or drug traffickers after name matches with an OFAC list.