Need Advice

[michjarv]

Good morning MyFico......I have been on and off on this site for over a year and a half.  THis site has helped me in understanding more about credit and how to clean up my credit.  I do have to admit that I have been slacking in cleaning up my credit due to me only have one income coming into my household and well just struggling to survive check to check.  I now need to actually do a better job to clean up my credit because I need to move out of my current living arrangements.  So here is why I'm posting today(I think this may be my first and hopefully not my last), in January I came on myFIco and ordered a Score Summary from both TransUnion & Equifax.  TU score was 595 and EQ score was 583.  Then on March 8th I ran another credit score & analysis trough TransUnion True Credit, and my scores was as follow:

TU: 629

EX: 615

EQ: 624

I was in shock, I did not do anything special to have my score reach this high.  I knew then that I had to clean up some of the accounts on there in whcih I had a balance that could be affecting my score.  I do not have any credit cards and I did enroll in a pre paid credit card saving/loan program in which I paid in full everytime I got paid(it wasmostly just $40-$60 cash advances that I used in between pay checks to make ends meet).  Now that I'm in the house hunting phrase, I had a lender run my credit to see how close I would be to get an FHA loan.  I told the lender that my scores are in the low 600's, I was basically using the scores I gotten from both MyFico and True Credit sites.  When the lender got back to me with the scores, this was what he emailed me:

TU: 523

EX: 581

EQ: 600

Now I was really confused, because since March, I did not open any new accounts, only had maybe 2-3 inquries which includes this lender.  Why are my scores totally off?  Which credit scores should I go by, the scores the lender sent me or the scores I get from myFico?  

I went on myFico and did a credit card inquiring to see which card I can get with my scores, they mention to get a card through Orchard Bank, which is the same place the lender actually advised me to open up to have at least a open credit card.  I'm still a lil bum that the scores are low, I knew I had to get between 6520-640 to get approved by FHA, what other steps should I take to get my score up by now and end of summer/beginning of fall. 

Any help and/or advise will be greatly appreciated....

[MarineVietVet]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

I can tell you why the scores were so much different. TrueCredit sells what are called "VantageScores". They are not FICO scores. Besides using a different scoring formula than FICO the score ranges vary widely. VS uses a score range of 501-990 whereas FICO has a range of 300-850. That is why your VS's are so much higher than the real FICO scores the lender pulled.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

[michjarv]

ah ok that makes sense.....so I'm thinking on doing the MyFico challenge.....so I will use the lender scoes as my starting point.  Thanks for help....Now I just need to look around this fourm more and find ways to help my score go up....

[MarineVietVet]

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@michjarv wrote:

ah ok that makes sense.....so I'm thinking on doing the MyFico challenge.....so I will use the lender scoes as my starting point.  Thanks for help....Now I just need to look around this fourm more and find ways to help my score go up....

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That's an excellent idea plus I'm sure you'll get other advice and suggestions besides mine.

Some other things though I think you should know about FICO scores going forward. There is no 3 in 1 monitoring service that sells FICO scores. The report are generally accurate but ignore the scores and the advice given by these "services" The advice is often completely opposite of what actually needs to be done to help your scores.

No one has been able to buy their own Experian FICO score since February of 2009. Creditors can pull Experian and also there is a CU (PSECU) in Pennsylvania that supplies that information to it's members only. You can only buy true FICO scores at a few places. One place is here at myFICO. I suggest you do an internet search for "myfico discount codes" to save a little money.

At one time you could also purchase your Transunion score at transunioncs.com but that site seems to have stopped doing that. Equifax will still sell you a FICO score but you have to look very hard to find it. You can get to it here: www.equifax.com/myfico-products.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".