Australia's largest credit reporting bureau Veda has quietly changed its scoring model, leaving many customers shocked and confused by their drastically lower credit scores.
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His credit score - a number reflecting credit worthiness based on past financial behaviour - has always been over 800. So he was staggered to see in January his score had plunged by 110 points to 737, which is below the national average.
"I was very disappointed because I haven't applied for any credit since September 2015 and I believe my score should have stayed where it was," said David, who asked for his surname to be withheld.
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"I feel Veda should have notified all its customers to say the scoring model has changed, because I was told thousands have been affected."
Veda has confirmed to Fairfax Media that it changed its scoring model, which means some people's scores may have increased or decreased. It maintains credit reports for millions of Australians.
It's understood the new model incorporates Comprehensive Credit Data. Veda now uses account limits and repayment history for the past two years.
"This new model allows for the inclusion of Comprehensive Credit Reporting information as this builds over time and also gives new weighting to the key behaviours that may impact an individual's credit worthiness," a spokeswoman said.
"Most people won't have seen a change in their VedaScore, or an impact in their ability to secure credit."
She reminded consumers that shopping around for credit and making multiple inquiries in a short period of time can indicate financial stress and therefore impact the score.
A bad credit score can reduce a consumer's ability to borrow from banks, mortgage companies, and other credit providers.
Credit scores sit between zero to 1200, and the national average is 757.
An "excellent" VedaScore is between 833 to 1200, "very good" is between 726 to 832, "good" is between 622 to 725, "average" is between 510 to 621 and "below average" is 509 or less.
David regularly checks his credit score and credit report and was disappointed to see his credit worthiness status had dropped from "excellent" to "very good".
"They said they're not going to look at this again, so I'm not sure what I can do," he said.
Fairfax Media is aware of one person who expected her credit score to have increased. Instead, it had dropped by 20 points.
Alexandra Kelly from the Financial Rights Legal Centre said the changes were further evidence the scoring system was "completely opaque".
"It's not a good indicator of anything as there is no reliability as to the methodology of the scoring due to the lack of transparency," she said.
"For most consumers it would feel completely arbitrary and completely outside of their control making it almost useless as any real indicator."
Ms Kelly said few credit providers had started reporting repayment history, for example, and those that are may not be doing so consistently.
"There will be greater capacity for errors simply because of the increase in the amount and regularity of information able to be reported," she said.
"Issues around how financial hardship will be dealt with under the new regime are still the subject of debate and we are concerned that consumers may be detrimentally affected."
In December, the Australian Privacy Commissioner found Veda had breached privacy rules when it sold commercial products to consumers who simply wanted a copy of their credit report, which, by law, they're able to access for free once a year.
Consumers should obtain a copy of their report each year to make sure all the information is correct.