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@Anonymous wrote:For the past three months I have PIF on my credit cards. I decided this month I was going to leave a 2% balance on one of my cards. My fico scores went up by an average of eight points and my vantage score went down by one point.
The Fico scoring models penalize you for not showing use of any credit. To avoid the penalty, you need to report some non zero balance on one of your cards each month.
It is still best to PIF all your cards to avoid an interest penalty. Unfortunately, that may mean 2 payments in a given month if you make a prepayment to reduce balance before the statement cuts.
Thanks for sharing everyone! We're compiling everyone's stories for an exciting new website that is coming out soon. Our hope is to help educate people about the difference, and these stories are truly a big part of that! Would anyone else like to share?
Thanks for sharing everyone! We're getting ready to launch a new educational website with the hope of helping people understand the difference between FICO Scores and non-FICO credit scores. Your stories are a huge part of that. Would anyone else like to share your non-FICO Score experience?
Really a score is just a general gauge of where your credit stands whether it is a FICO score or a FAKO score.. Granted lender sometimes will solely go off a FICO score for approval or lack of an approval. I think what alot of people tend to overlook is it isn't the score that is really important it is what is your your CREDIT REPORT for each CB. People can be well into the 700's and have baddies or BK's or what not and be declined due to those reasons. I think it is the overall report lenders look at rather than just the score and look at the complete picture. Ya it is nice seeing a high score, but I look more at what is in my credit report or others reports as I find that more important than a Fico or Fako score.
I contacted Lexington Law a few days ago to see if they could help me with my credit. They told me my credit score was 567. I just found out yesterday that my actual TU score is 628! They probably give people low FAKOs to get them to feel like they really need help; turns out I'm doing something right all on my own!
Well i have more the same to lot of people i used
my fico TU 641 EQ 638 EX 639
CK TU 659 EQ 667
EX web site 639 same of my fico
Credit Sesame TU 667
i been rebuild my credit since 2014 i have some bog's and BK on 08 is be amazing journey and is not done yet this only is my begins, by i see the CS is base on what you have on you CR and the tape the score is used the lender by if you CR is good and you take care is nothing to worry
If I may ask, is your original score an actual FICO or is it a Fako? 628 FICO from a 509 FICO is significant, and yes, you are doing something right. 628 FICO from a 509 Fako is not that significant, because you are no longer comparing apples to apples. That means your increase does not indicate you are doing something right, but that you may be comparing 2 completely different things.
My feeling on Fako is that if the Fako rises from a Fako, then my FICO is also probably rising. Any place I apply to is going to use their own standards/algorythm anyway. My goal is an increase from like to like.
@Anonymous wrote:I contacted Lexington Law a few days ago to see if they could help me with my credit. They told me my credit score was 567. I just found out yesterday that my actual TU score is 628! They probably give people low FAKOs to get them to feel like they really need help; turns out I'm doing something right all on my own!
I get my FAKO score from a few places, but most use CK since it updates once a week. I remember when you could update it once a day! I also get it from Credit Sesame, Quizzle, Credit.com, etc. I get my FICO scores from my credit card companies when they update each month, so I don't know which bureau they get it from. Most of them give me the FICO 8 bankcard score, but I think once gives me FICO 5. I don't yet what my FICO was when I apped for my United card from Chase, but it must have been pretty good, they gave me a $19K limit. (Whoo Hoo!) The APR is a standard 15.99 for that card, it doesn't appear that it is different for anyone according to the card terms and conditions.
When I first started rebuilding the CK score was a great tool to use to track what happened and see how the score change on a daily basis according to what posted on my report. It certainly made it very visable how usage and other things really did impact a score. When some baddies fell off my report you could clearly see the nice jump it caused. When I got my first limit over $2000 you could clearly see that jump too. As I applied for cards you could also see the changes caused by the inquiries. And certainly over time it also was good to see how the score increased with proper payment of the accounts. Recently though there has been a drop to my CK score, a huge drop actually, by about 30 points, while at the same time my FICO score jumped 30 points. Right now there is almost a 70 point difference in these two scores. I find this to be amusing. I did appreciate these services in the past, but am a bit more appreciative as of recent times. Now I basically use them only for monitoring. I still check CK every week out of habit, but really don't rely on the score as much since my credit card companies give me a real FICO. It would take a little more effort, but since I have a number of cards (16 major cards and 5 store cards) I could do the same thing in regards to tracking.
See there is quite a big difference. Where as before they were pretty much in line with each other, now not really! Even if you were to compare the difference in fact that the FICO score starts at 250 and ends at 900, then it would mean that the score difference would be nearly 75 points. Just looking at the color coding you can also see the difference in levels. I am basically yellow at Ck and a nice green on the FICO scale. For rebuilding I still think that CK is good as a tool to help people to understand what it going on with their scores. You can certainly see different aspects of what you do and your factors and what happens over time. However, for me, I think the FICO seems to be more reliable. CK uses the Vantage score 3.0 model, which is not widely used by lenders. If it were, I might not have gotten that United card and if I did, not at that limit!
I had been using CreditKarma since late april and had seen my scores raise steadily since then. I paid off a few old collections and disputed them directly through their website and two were taken off within a week! So as of today at CK my scores are 646 and 638. This had me super excited and thinking I was that much closer to my goal of buying a house in the next year.
Well, haha, not so fast. I signed up here and got my three scores: 577, 583, and 603..... SUPER DISSAPOINTED. HOW ARE THEY SO OFF?! But with using myfico now i see that I have another past collection that I couldn't see with CK and I will be taking care of it asap. I like CK only for the fact that the disputes were so easy and that at least I could see some movement in my scores, even though they are misleadingly high, AND I got two CC based off their recommendations.
I'm excited to be part of this community of such helpful and encouraging people at myfico (even though I was super bummed upon seeing my actual FICO scores).