topic Re: Vantage Score? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Vantage Score?

hardworkrebuilding — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:48:27 GMT

So I ordered my free annual Experian report and purchased the Vantage Score for $7.95. I feel like I got robbed. Other non-FICO scores at least have similar ranges, but this Vantage Score has a range of 501-990. How do I even compare? I have Identity Guard and get the quarterly update. They use the CreditXpert Score (range of 350-850). I have found it to be within just a few points of my FICO scores every time. The score of 736 I was given is in line with my most recent FICO scores, but because the range is so different I'm concerned my FICO may be quite a bit lower. Can I order a FICO score for my Experian?

Re: Vantage Score?

HiLine — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:50:20 GMT

No you cannot order an Experian FICO score. :(

Re: Vantage Score?

hardworkrebuilding — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:54:16 GMT

Any idea how Vantage Score compares?

Re: Vantage Score?

hardworkrebuilding — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:55:51 GMT

And I've been meaing to ask...Is FAKO a real score or is that just what everyone calls non-FICO scoring?

Re: Vantage Score?

daybreakgonesXe — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:58:24 GMT

hardworkrebuilding wrote:
Any idea how Vantage Score compares?

It's not a way that it compares to the traditional FICO score, but on what wavelength you're graded...VantageScore is weird in that very small fluctuations in balances and accounts and utilization and pretty much everything causes it to go up or down...pretty much 900-990 is an "A", 800-899 is a "B", 700-799 is a "C", and yadda yadda yadda.

As a person who lets a balance report on all my cards, my VantageScore goes up when there's a 0 balance on one, the balance decreases from the previous month, etc. Respectively, it goes down for the opposite. So it's very VERY sensitive to your account information. I'm sure having 0 balances report on all your cards except for one at 1%-2% will cause a huge jump in your VantageScore.

Re: Vantage Score?

Shogun — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:06:30 GMT

hardworkrebuilding wrote:
And I've been meaing to ask...Is FAKO a real score or is that just what everyone calls non-FICO scoring?

FAKO is just a term we use in reference to the non-lender used scores that several different companies put out.

Re: Vantage Score?

hardworkrebuilding — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:14:09 GMT

I can't even call this score a FAKO because the range is so far off. At least the other FAKO scores I receive are from similar ranges. The sell you the score on the premise of knowing for the purposes of acquiring credit and knowing where you stand. You don't find out until after your $8 donation, that it has little resemblance to FICO. Like I said, I feel like I was robbed. Good thing I wasn't carrying much cash.:smileywink:

Re: Vantage Score?

Walt_K — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:15:13 GMT

Vantage is used by some lenders, so it isn't precisely the same as "educational" only scores like the Plus score. It's probably more accurate to say that FAKO just means not-FICO.

No scoring models correlate to any of the other scoring models. They are not meant to be predictors of each other. The various different models are competing models for predicting risk. They give different weight to different information in your report. So you should not expect them to give the same result. When they do, it is mostly coincidence.

Re: Vantage Score?

cashnocredit — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:04:27 GMT

I reserve the somewhat disparaging term "FAKO' for those scores that have similar ranges to FICO, are sold to consumers only, and their nature is obfuscated with the intention of decieving consumers.

Vantage scores are scores that are actually used by a few lenders. They are scores with clearly stated ranges that are quite different from FICO ranges, and they use a subset of factors that FICO scores use in order to achieve a higher consistency across CRAs at the cost of somewhat lower risk assessment quality.

In general all scores, even ones with ranges similar to FICO, should be normalized in order to compare them with each other. The standard way normalization is done is to translate scores to rank percentiles or where does the score position one's credit quality as a percentage of the population. Even after doing this there is significant variability amongst score providers. The CFPB published a detailed paper on this a few months back.

Re: Vantage Score?

HiLine — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:24:42 GMT

hardworkrebuilding wrote:
And I've been meaing to ask...Is FAKO a real score or is that just what everyone calls non-FICO scoring?

FAKO is pronounced Fake-O ;)

Re: Vantage Score?

shols44 — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 00:10:36 GMT

CK offers free daily vantage scores. Why would anyone pay for it?

As a general rule, IGNORE ALL FAKOS ALL THE TIME! It is mere conincidence that your FAKOs are close to your FICO's so far.

Just Ignore them, ALWAYS!

Re: Vantage Score?

bs6054 — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 00:20:29 GMT

Don't be too taken by FICO marketing. As it says on this site:

90 of the top 100 largest U.S. financial institutions use the FICO Score to make consumer credit decisions.

i.e. once you have paid for your score here, in 10% of the cases, your lender will see potentially a very different score. And this understates the issue. The score here is one particular version of FICO, your lenders might be used credit-card-enhanced, auto-enhanced etc versions of FICO, so even though it falls into the 90%, it is a different score.

And, in particular, the TU score available here is more or less a FAKO, as very very few lenders now use that version. Walmart gives its cardholders the more modern version.

Re: Vantage Score?

Walt_K — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 04:27:01 GMT

Walmart gives you TU08. TU04 is the more prevalent score. I don't think you can get TU04 other than through a lender.

Re: Vantage Score?

starry1 — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 04:34:38 GMT

hardworkrebuilding wrote:
Any idea how Vantage Score compares?

I don't think a vantage score is worth the pixels they burned to show it to you.

Re: Vantage Score?

chnceit — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 04:50:57 GMT

My CK Vantage score is 811 :smileyvery-happy:

Re: Vantage Score?

ready13 — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 05:27:23 GMT

right, i had the same happen to me and since last year had some difficulty with the printing then and there of the printable option before you opt out of your credit report( not credit score) then i saved the printable version which you can easily transfer into a pdf as an option depending on the printer/pc/ how you access the free annual credit report web site. You can also get the free month option, which gives you 30 days of credit check on their site with the credit scoring but have to give credit card number before viewing and cancel account before the 14-15 day period before they charge the account iinfo provided to open with. I did this and also had the chance to print and copy the info provided on the web page which was very helpful and the people helping me with customer service through the vantage scoring comp. were very gracious and helpful to me,;) i was satisfied with the help. The free annual credit report is offered only as a means for people who do not have a monthly tracker service that they pay to view their report and make any needed changes or corrections to their report without having to pay, As a law this had to be opted by the bureaus but is not for people to view their score that is an extra which is why you have the option to pay/donate/open account etc. if you wish to go further with that.To dispute any options or mistakes you do not need to purchase anything.

Re: Vantage Score?

starsky1 — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:50:27 GMT

Sorry, but my Citi Credit Monitor scores are nearly identical to MyFico scores. For example my CCM EQ=761 and MyFico = 762 . The TU is different by a total of 3 points, and have been for months. I've been using Citi Monitor for a long time and I find their service quite good for my purposes. Credit Karma is actually different by 2 points as compared to MYfico =772 , now that is suprising, but again, I find their sevice acceptable too. I pay my bills on time, don't mess with my credit (too much) and my scores stay pretty constant. I do expect them to go up over the course of 12 months as some debt is eliminated.

Citi Credit Monitor: Good service for $8.95 p/m.

Credit Karma: Good service for free.

One note though: I tried that Quizzle site for the heck of it and got a score of 702. Way off.

Re: Vantage Score?

cashnocredit — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:09:40 GMT

starsky1 wrote:
Sorry, but my Citi Credit Monitor scores are nearly identical to MyFico scores. For example my CCM EQ=761 and MyFico = 762 . The TU is different by a total of 3 points, and have been for months. I've been using Citi Monitor for a long time and I find their service quite good for my purposes. Credit Karma is actually different by 2 points as compared to MYfico =772 , now that is suprising, but again, I find their sevice acceptable too. I pay my bills on time, don't mess with my credit (too much) and my scores stay pretty constant. I do expect them to go up over the course of 12 months as some debt is eliminated.

Citi Credit Monitor: Good service for $8.95 p/m.
Credit Karma: Good service for free.

One note though: I tried that Quizzle site for the heck of it and got a score of 702. Way off.

That's interesting. I have the Citi credit(ID) monitor as well and their "scores" have always tracked very closely to EQ FICO within about 5 points or so even with baddies. Right now they are identical.

Re: Vantage Score?

cashnocredit — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:27:53 GMT

My VantageScore increased a bit to 880 on the same day EQ FICO dropped for no obvious reason over 50 points to 703. It will be interesting to see it Citi's Credit Monitor tracks the unexplained FICO score drop since it has followed FICO so closely. It will be 3 weeks before I can find out since I just pulled it last week.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Major-drop-FICO-now-lower-than-2-years-ago-when-I-had-a-PR-on-a/td-p/1806209

Re: Vantage Score?

nyancat — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:18:42 GMT

VantageScore is a competing model. The "FAKOs" are scores only sold to consumers, not lenders. The VantageScore isn't such a score.

But you can get TU VantageScore free from CreditKarma. It's interesting, and certainly not useless.

Also, the people who say the scores have no relation to FICO are wrong. They're all meant to predict risk. IF they're all good at that, then even if they're using totally different data, they should be highly correlated. Otherwise, they're not reliable measures of risk.