One question I have: where did you get your credit scores? Are those from a lender? The reason I ask is because nobody has been able to buy their Experian scores for years. If the scores you have are what we call FAKOs, they are not your real FICO scores and don't give anyone a good idea of where you stand right now, since FAKO scores are pretty much useless.
Starting Score: FICO: 587 EX, 594 EQ, 632 TU, 2/15/12; USAA FAKO: 525 EX, 541 EQ, 525 TU, 2/15/12
Gvalencia wrote:The scores are legit. I use Truecredit.com with Transunion as a monthly check. I highly recommend it. Gives me an accurate update on everything. Debt, scores, inquires, and more.
Gvalencia. Hi, and welcome to the forums. You have run into the same problem that most people do when they first start trying to evaluate and improve their credit profile. The credit scores you are getting from Transunion are not Fico scores. They are most assuredly not used by your prospective lenders. They are what we like to refer to as FAKO scores, being that they are basically sold as "educational" scores by the three credit bureaus Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. Third party providers like Transunion, Freescore.com, Creditkarma, etc...etc...etc.... market these so called "credit scores" to the public but when you read the fine print they even admit they are not the real deal. The actual credit reports you receive are legit, although an abbreviated version of what you can actually pull from the CRA directly from their website. You need to get your real Fico score here. The Equifax score is rock solid, and will most likely exactly match what your lender would pull from say a credit union, unless they use an auto enhanced version of the score. The Transunion score you get here is an older version called TU 98, but it is a real Fico score and is still used by a lot of lenders. You cannot purchase your Experian credit score anywhere at this time, although it is available to a select few via a PA. credit union last time I heard. If you want to know your actual score, buy your Equifax score here, then sit down and compare your three credit reports you get from Truecredit to see how they match up. There can be substantial differences in accounts reported, balances, negatives and so on. This will give you at least a basic idea of where you stand. There are many, many well credit educated folks on these forums who will be glad to answer any questions you may have. Just take a look at all the forums and post your question in the appropriate place. The moderators will help you with that if need be. Glad you are here, and don't get discouraged. We all started here at some point. Good luck.
Gvalencia wrote:The scores are legit. I use Truecredit.com with Transunion as a monthly check. I highly recommend it. Gives me an accurate update on everything. Debt, scores, inquires, and more.
Sorry for the bad news, but as others have mentioned, Truecredit provides you with FAKO scores. Useless unfortunately. If you can get at least one of your real FICO scores from here, probably EQ is best, people can help you a lot more. I think you can also get a real FICO from the EQ website as well, although they bury it and try to sell you their FAKO instead.
On a monitoring note, you may even consider USAA over Truecredit. Both provide usless scores, but USAA allows a daily pull of all three reports and costs only $12.25/month. Perhaps you could even sign up for the ScoreWatch free trial as well. It gets you a free EQ FICO score. If you don't want the service, you can just cancel within the 7 days.
Gvalencia wrote:Thank you Guydiver for the sound advice. Much appreciated. Now is there a chance we could get back on track and try answering the "original" question please?
I think the point of the extra questions is that it is really hard for anyone to give you advice on what auto loans you might be able to get until you find your real credit scores. Most auto lenders are going to start by looking at your credit score. If we don't know what that is, it is hard to make suggestions.
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