1. A computer-implemented method for explaining credit scores, the method comprising: providing a Web site on a web server that contains informative resources, the Web site: providing consumers access to the informative resources via a network connected to the web server, the informative resources comprising information representing practices of the collecting, storing, reporting, and evaluating of consumer credit data; receiving consumer credit scores and reason codes from individual consumers or third parties, in interactive or batch modes; providing an explanation report to the individual consumers based upon the consumer credit scores associated with each individual consumer; defining a credit score as a function of prediction characteristics; defining a surrogate set of characteristics as representing areas for improvement; developing, by at lest one data processor, by a server, 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.