Patent Document ID: 20070288338
Application ID: 11829606
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for explaining credit scores, comprising the steps of: providing a Web site that contains informative resources, said Web site comprising any of for-pay services and extranet/Internet functions; offering consumers access to information contained in said informative resources, the resources being, both general and personal, about practices comprising any of collection, storing, reporting, and evaluating consumer credit data; accepting consumer credit scores and reason codes from individual consumers or third parties, in interactive or batch modes; providing an explanation report to said individual consumers based upon the individual consumers' credit scores, defining a credit score as a function of prediction characteristics; defining a surrogate set of characteristics as representing areas for improvement; developing a surrogate score to approximate a real credit score, using said real credit score as a performance (dependent) variable and using said surrogate characteristics as predictors; and defining a potential improvement metric for each area for improvement.