Trumblog

I was listening to an NPR story on credit the other day and was struck by the similarity between credit score and search rank.  Here’ s an edited transcript of one section of the story:

Texas-based flight attendant Lilli Durbin used to have six credit cards, which is fairly typical for this country. She couldn’t pay them off, but she says she always played by the rules: “Always paid more than my minimum balance, always paid it a week or two in advance.” … [then] Durbin was notified late last year that the bank behind two of those cards was going to drop her credit limit — from about $10,000 to $4,000 for each card. That was right around the average balance she’d been holding… Durbin was particularly upset that the change meant her credit score would drop, because her balance was suddenly bumping up against her credit limit. She feared that might complicate her effort to refinance her house.

Like search engine ranking, credit score has some basic known rules, but with underlying uncertainty on their precise application to achieve the score, and that alogorithm can and does change at a moment’s notice, which can have disastrus effects on the user.  A good analagy that I’ll be using with clients in the future.

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