Who decided that credit scores should start at 300, and why? Is it just a nice arbitrary number? If scores just fall on a linear distribution from 300 to 850, wouldn’t it just be easier to start at zero and count up to 550? What is the benefit to starting at 300? That seems SO crazy to me.
In: 6859
It’s to make people feel better. 300 sounds way better than 0. There’s no legitimate reason otherwise. Before FICO 9, the scale was a 500 point scale from 350 to 850. You could subtract 350, and then multiply the number by two to get your percent likelihood to pay the loan back. For example, a credit score of 800 would be:
800-350= 450
450×2/10= 90% likelihood to pay the loan back
Therefore, the 500 point scale could have been 0-500, but they chose 350-850 because they don’t want you to feel like complete shit.
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