What you need to know to get your credit scores

[Anonymous]

And other nice tidbits....some of which we already know about.  But some that might be of interest to our readers.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/yourmoney/orl-ymscore2908jun29,0,3505956.story

[Anonymous]

The EQ trick mentioned in the article is interesting and I didn't know about it, but the author does fail to state the WaMu proferred PFICO is not the "classic" version more useful to gauge your interest rates on mortgage loans.

[Anonymous]

I think it's hilarious that the author makes no bones about calling non-FICO scores "fake."  He doesn't go so far as to say "FAKO," but that's close enough.

[Anonymous]

They also fail to mention the classic TU FICO's available when you have a HELOC account with Wamu and access your account online.

[MattH]

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@Anonymous wrote:

And other nice tidbits....some of which we already know about. But some that might be of interest to our readers.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/yourmoney/orl-ymscore2908jun29,0,3505956.story

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Hmm, the article mentioned a free credit score estimator at www.credit.com where one answers a few questions to get its estimate. It came up with 825 for me, which isn't a bad guesstimate -- the last time I pulled all three at myfico my highest was 826 (EX) while my EQ was 786 and my TU was 796. It would be interesting if others could give it a try and report how closely it correlates for them, obviously it's even more of a FAKO than other FAKOs since it's going by a few simple questions.

I personally think the free annual report should include everything a mortgage lender or car dealer would see including both classic FICO and auto-enhanced FICO scores, and especially I think the various misleading "free credit report" sites should be outlawed, but at least there does exist a truly free way to get a look now. Once upon a time it was easier to get one's FBI file than it was to get one's credit file, and I personally care much more about my credit file than I do about whatever file the FBI might have on me since my credit file affects my life to a much greater extent!

[Anonymous]

I did the bankrate estimator and my scores are not nearly as high as they should be according to them.  Especially EQ.  Their score for me has not changed in months.

[Anonymous]

WOW! It was WAY off for me.. 468 My Fico is 642- my lowest is 618

[WhirledPeasPlease]

Your FICO® scores are estimated to be between:

645-695

Which isn't too far off.  I don't like that I had to include SL debt in the 'how much do you owe outside of a mortgage'?  Hmm..  Oddly enough I just ran the same numbers but excluded the SL debt -- same range.  I'm guessing because I still reported revolving as 0-9 percent the algorithm gave me a pass on that 'greater than 20k' debt.

Weird.  (Actual scores in sig)

[Samantha_Storm]

My score was 512 way off and my lowest score on my fico is 654