Federal laws including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Consumer Credit Protection Act prohibit certain things from being factored into credit scores. Such things include:
- Race, color, religion, national origin, sex and marital status. US law prohibits credit scoring
- from considering these facts, as well as any receipt of public assistance, or the exercise of any consumer right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act.
- Your age. Other types of scores may consider your age, but credit scores don’t.
- Your salary, occupation, title, employer, date employed or employment history. Lenders may consider this information, but it is not used in the credit score.
- Where you live.
- Any interest rate being charged on a particular credit card or other account.
- Any items reported as child/family support obligations or rental agreements.
- Certain types of inquiries. The score does not count “consumer-initiated” inquiries — requests you have made for your credit report, in order to check it. It also does not count “promotional inquiries” –- requests made by lenders in order to make you a “pre-approved” credit offer –- or “administrative inquiries” – requests made by lenders to review your account with them. Requests that are marked as coming from employers are not counted either.
- Any information not found in your credit report.
- Any information that is not proven to be predictive of future credit performance.
