Fico or Fako's

[Anonymous]

Hi.  I just applied with John Adams Mortgage for pre-approval today and I was just wondering do most lenders actually pull Fico scores instead of these Fako's you can get on other sites?  My Fico scores are okay (mid score EQ - 673), but a few months ago I pulled some Fako site scores and they were all lower.  They had some crap that isn't even mine.  So, I was just wondering if most mortgage companies use the actual Fico score???  Thanks in advance.

handbaglady

[llecs]

A large vast majority use FICO.

[Anonymous]

Thanks.  That's what I was hoping to hear.  I hope John Adams/Real Estate One uses the Fico!!!

[llecs]

I googled your mortgage company and they had a solid write-up about FICO scores and the versions used. Safe bet they use FICO. The only thing you may be interested in finding out is which version they use. As an FYI, myFICO uses Beacon 5.0 for EQ and TU'98 (Emperica 98) for TU.

All of the posts I have seen mentions Beacon 5.0 as the one being pulled. EQ and FICO introduces a new EQ score this spring geared towards mortgages. The also introduced recently a new score for the FICO 08 version. The EQ equiv. is called Beacon 9.0.

About half of the lenders out there use TU'98 or TU'04 versions for TU. MyFICO show the TU'98 version. TU'04 tends to be lower for most folks by approx. 30 pts on average as compared to TU'98.

And EX is no more on myFICO, but most lenders use Risk Model Version 2 I believe.

Not to confuse things anyway.....

[Anonymous]

Ahhh!  That was alot of information, but thanks for looking that up for me.  I hope they use the score I need them to use.

Handbaglady

[jamevfan]

so which scores are generally higher? FICO or FAKO's?

[llecs]

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jamevfan wrote:
so which scores are generally higher? FICO or FAKO's?

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Here's my generic answer: Your FAKO score can either be higher or lower than your FICO score.

Seriously though, the formulas are all different. There's something like 2000 scoring models out there. In general, your FICO can go up and your FAKO down for the same event. I had a CA removed once and my FICO jumped 58 points. An EX FAKO dropped 8 points for the same thing when pulled on the same day. I have one FAKO (TransRisk) that is at 470 right now. My corresponding TU FICO is at 670. The same score has been as close as 20 points lower and 250 pts lower when compared on the same day. My PLUS scores (FAKOs via freecreditreport.com, CCT, etc.) have been as high as 80 points higher and 120 points lower when pulled and compared with the same CRA on the same day. My Vantage score (FAKO created by all 3 CRAs) has been as high as 770 when compared to a 650ish on the same day (Vantage scale goes to 990 vs FICO's 850). In short, I ignore all FAKOs. Lenders don't use them anyway.