About a month ago, I pulled my Equifax FAKO score directly from Equifax. It was approx. 495 and I was really frustrated because I didn't feel my score should be that low given my credit history. Finally, I decided it was silly to keep looking at FAKOs so I just subscribed to myfico's Score Watch. Guess what... my EQ FICO is really 579... about 80 points higher! I've heard other say that they're FICO was significantly higher than their FAKOs, but I never expected it for me.
Also, how accurate is the Score Simulator??
My "best action" is to pay down 90-100% of my revolving debt over the next 24 months. While I can't do anything about the 24 month part (except be patient of course), I'm already well on my way to paying off all of my CC debt and I hope my util % to start reporting lower in March and be down below 9% in less than 6 months. It said that if I do this best action, my score could be 699 – 739 in 24 months... so exciting if that's actually true!!
Mid-2010 Starting Scores: FAKO EQ 476 FAKO EX 506 FICO TU98 575
July 2017 Current Scores: Approx 710 (waiting for official updates)
Starting Score: EQ 583 TU04 619 EX 592 (lender pull) 2010