My FICO score? What a ripoff!!

[sethr]

So my wife gets turned down for a car loan at Old National Bank.  Her scores are EXP: 711, EQ: 690 and TU: 655.

The bank comes back with a 629 and says she cannot get a loan, even WITH a co-signer.  Minimum required is 640!!

Now my college-based math skills do NOT show an average here at 629!!  Then ONB says that there are MANY models and each institution uses their own.  SO how do you know what to do ahead of time WITHOUT a credit check hit?

ONB also says they only use Equifax and TU combined.  Still above 640 doing the math.

The underlying question is why even BUY scores from the CRAs if these are NOT the score anyone uses anyway?!!??   Is it another CRAs money grabbing scam?

[HoldingOntoHope]

Well welcome to the forums!!

It's not a FICO score ripoff. Since you are quoting all three credit scores and buying them through one (or more) of the CRA's then I can almost assuredly say that the scores you purchased are not FICO scores. Although it is not the only place to get them you can purchase your wife's (or yours) TU and EQ scores through this site. And banks do not "average" the scores. They use the singular number provided. It is true that there are many variations of the FICO score available to the different industries if they wish to get a specific slant but the "Classic" FICO scores are still the most popular and the only ones available to consumers. And Experian (EX) won't play with consumers at all. It's an imperfect system but it's better than nothing.

If you do a little reading around these forums you can educate yourself on what is a FICO versus what we lovingly refer to in these forums as a "FAKO" score, which is what is provided by most of the credit score sites. And even though the scoring algorithm is a secret the basic structure of the algorithm and things you can do to positively (or negatively) affect your score are discussed here in detail.

You are not the first, and won't be the last, to be mislead by the credit scoring sites and then landing in these forums through frustration. But credit education can overcome this and best of all it's free. Most of the members who have been here for a while are simply paying it forward for the help we got when we were new.

[p-]

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sethr wrote: The underlying question is why even BUY scores from the CRAs if these are NOT the score anyone uses anyway?!!??   Is it another CRAs money grabbing scam?

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Yes.  Yes, it is.  

There are many different scoring models, as defined in the thread titled "Credit Scoring 101".  The one most commonly sold to banks is the FICO score.  Auto loans are often evaluated by a "Auto-Enhanced" score, which to my knowledge you can't even get.

My read on it is that the credit bureaus consider lending institutions their customers, and both us and our data the product for sale.  Because there are so many scoring models, it's impossible to know how high we will score when applying for credit.  

If you spend some time here, and do your homework, you can often find out which report an score is used for some lenders.  You will also definitely find out how to increase your scores with any scoring model.

Good luck!