Electoral Roll change on my credit score.

[DrFfybes]

I have a Clearscore free alert set up - each month I get a report, and alerts if anything changes.

I've just had one for "Electoral roll record added" for Electoral Roll Period 2024-2024 and the entry is for me, but with my first initial missing - ie R Fyyfbes rathter than D R Ffybes.

I havent moved house for over 3.5 years so this seems a little tardy, and the missing initial is odd. My next monthyl report is ony a few days away, but DAK is this sort of thing normal?

Thanks

Paul

[clissold345]

I have a TransUnion credit report via my bank. The electoral register bit has my full name and address and "Registered since" such and such a date (the beginning of the month that I moved into the house). Is that info any use to you?

[mc2fool]

I have a TransUnion credit report via my bank. The electoral register bit has my full name and address and "Registered since" such and such a date (the beginning of the month that I moved into the house). Is that info any use to you?

Clearscore has the same (well, only years, not months). The question for DrFfybes' case is whether it's a glitch at Clearscore or with the electoral roll, and probably the easiest way to find out is to contact the local Electoral Registration Office.

https://www.gov.uk/contact-electoral-registration-office

[Lootman]

I've just had one for "Electoral roll record added" for Electoral Roll Period 2024-2024 and the entry is for me, but with my first initial missing - ie R Fyyfbes rather than D R Ffybes.

As an aside does anyone know why being on the electoral roll is included in credit scores and reports?

It does not convey any financial information about an individual. And it is derived from a form that is hand-written by a member of a household and may be incorrect, outdated or incomplete.

And what sort of impact if any does it have on your credit score if you are on or not on the register?

[Lootman]

As an aside does anyone know why being on the electoral roll is included in credit scores and reports?

It does not convey any financial information about an individual. And it is derived from a form that is hand-written by a member of a household and may be incorrect, outdated or incomplete.

And what sort of impact if any does it have on your credit score if you are on or not on the register?

It has been some years now but I have previously worked on scoring algorithms for retail lending. The typical process is simply lots of inputs, electoral roll membership and duration at address being one of them, matched to historical outcomes for particular cohorts. This analysis is then fed back into subsequent decision processing for similar cohorts. So it's not really about the electoral roll per se. It's just about matching that membership (or lack thereof) with a known outcome.

If I had to guess, I would imagine electoral roll membership implies less risk of default vs someone who chooses not to be on the roll; that is a statistic inference rather than a human judgment. I would imagine with machine learning having become commonplace now, that more and more inputs will be fed into these models to generate such inferences. e.g. if you apply for credit from your bank, they will analyse all expenditure to create a profile, rather than in times gone by when they'd look just at, say, if you regularly paid your mortgage from your account etc. Having machine learning models makes it feasible to consider all meta data about transactions when doing decisioning (e.g. the time of the transaction, was it online, place of the transaction, amount obviously. Similar stuff is done for fraud reasons).

It seems to be a trend for institutions to correlate seemingly unrelated things and then infer a connection between them. So that for example if I get a citation for littering and there is a statistical correlation between littering and defaulting on a credit card, then my credit score will go down even though littering is not a financial matter.

So I guess if a higher percentage of individuals not on the electoral roll default versus those on the electoral roll, then that becomes a factor even if nobody can explain why that should possibly happen.

Moving address often could be a negative indicator for creditworthiness, I can see that. But even so the electoral roll seems like it is not the best way to track where someone lives. Postal address or driving license address would be better in my view.

I have not applied for any new credit line in at least 5 years so thankfully this kind of faux correlation does not impact me personally. But the Big Brother aspect of it irks me.

[clissold345]

As an aside does anyone know why being on the electoral roll is included in credit scores and reports?

...

Here's Experian's opinion:

https://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/gui ... -roll.html

[mc2fool]

It seems to be a trend for institutions to correlate seemingly unrelated things and then infer a connection between them. So that for example if I get a citation for littering and there is a statistical correlation between littering and defaulting on a credit card, then my credit score will go down even though littering is not a financial matter.

So I guess if a higher percentage of individuals not on the electoral roll default versus those on the electoral roll, then that becomes a factor even if nobody can explain why that should possibly happen.

Maybe they do that but it's really not the main reason electoral roll registration is checked. It's basically the primary thing looked at for electronic ID verification. Any financial institution is unlikely to want to offer you service if they can't verify you and your address, and we've been round this circle before, Lootman.

You not being on the electoral roll is why every time you try and open an a/c they demand to see your passport and a utility bill or similar, and my being on the electoral roll is why they don't!

[Lootman]

It seems to be a trend for institutions to correlate seemingly unrelated things and then infer a connection between them. So that for example if I get a citation for littering and there is a statistical correlation between littering and defaulting on a credit card, then my credit score will go down even though littering is not a financial matter.

So I guess if a higher percentage of individuals not on the electoral roll default versus those on the electoral roll, then that becomes a factor even if nobody can explain why that should possibly happen.

Maybe they do that but it's really not the main reason electoral roll registration is checked. It's basically the primary thing looked at for electronic ID verification. Any financial institution is unlikely to want to offer you service if they can't verify you and your address, and we've been round this circle before, Lootman.

You not being on the electoral roll is why every time you try and open an a/c they demand to see your passport and a utility bill or similar, and my being on the electoral roll is why they don't!

For the once every 5 years that I might open an account I am perfectly happy to flash my passport at a clerk; it is really not a problem.

My point was more about why not being on the register should presuppose inferior credit. At worst it should merely cause an alternative proof of address to be checked, which may or may not be where I actually live!

[Stompa]

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/di ... clearscore

Though I guess alicef and the OP may be one and the same.....

[SebsCat]

You not being on the electoral roll is why every time you try and open an a/c they demand to see your passport and a utility bill or similar, and my being on the electoral roll is why they don't!

I don't drive and have not been abroad for over 20 years so can have trouble "proving" who I am. Having a stable electoral roll record (19 years at previous address, 11 years at this one) is a positive boon when it comes to the outsourced system of identification we have allowed to be the norm in the UK (*). I've even been in the scenario where a financial company I had had an account with for many years wouldn't accept any form of ID I could provide, but when I rang them they managed to "verify" me by making a pseudo-application for a new account....

* - somewhat OT, but I used to be violently against any form of govt issued ID card until I came to realise that we have sleepwalked into allowing private companies to fulfil that role for most practical purposes.

[DrFfybes]

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6503548/incorrect-electoral-reg-info-on-clearscore

Though I guess alicef and the OP may be one and the same.....

I am not alicef, although it appears she may have the same surname

[Lootman]

You not being on the electoral roll is why every time you try and open an a/c they demand to see your passport and a utility bill or similar, and my being on the electoral roll is why they don't!

I don't drive and have not been abroad for over 20 years so can have trouble "proving" who I am. Having a stable electoral roll record (19 years at previous address, 11 years at this one) is a positive boon when it comes to the outsourced system of identification we have allowed to be the norm in the UK (*). I've even been in the scenario where a financial company I had had an account with for many years wouldn't accept any form of ID I could provide, but when I rang them they managed to "verify" me by making a pseudo-application for a new account....m

* - somewhat OT, but I used to be violently against any form of govt issued ID card until I came to realise that we have sleepwalked into allowing private companies to fulfil that role for most practical purposes.

I can see how an electoral registration is handy if you are otherwise off the grid and under the radar, i.e. no DL, no passport etc.

Conversely if you have a passport, DL etc., then the electoral roll entry is moot.

But what I find odd is that you can put anything on the paper form for electoral registration. So the idea that it is proof of ID or residence is ridiculous. It is just a declaration at a point of time, either by you or by someone else, and evidence of nothing but that.

[csearle]

I'm reminded of Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption where he created a non-existent entity by bootstrapping his way up the bureaucratic channels from within prison (no mean feat pre-internet) - but then it was fiction. C.

[DrFfybes]

Just to tidy this up, te full report has just come in.

I'm not quite sure what order things happened in, however my current address and full name have been added for Electoral Roll Perios 23-24 and updated for period 20-24.

Surprisingly it has increased my credit score.