Credit Card Issuers - FICO Scores

[Red1Blue]

I see on Amex, Citi, Discover and other websites offering the free FICO reports or Fico Scores. How accurate they are comparing to what we buy from FICO?

[Anonymous]

If the score is coming from the same scoring model, pulling data from the same bureau and pulled at the same date/time they will be identical.

Amex offers an EX FICO 08.  Discover offers a TU FICO 08.  Creditscorecard from Discover also offers a EX FICO 08 (same as Amex).  Citi I believe does not offer FICO 08's but rather another scoring model (possibly bank card?) which means those scores would not be idential to FICO 08's.  All you have to do is read the fine print below wherever you are able to obtain your score and it will tell you the scoring model used and the bureau used to obtain the data to create the score.

[HeavenOhio]

Just to add a few…

My Wells Fargo account offers a FICO 5 mortage score based on Equifax. Barclays offers a FICO based on TransUnion; I think it's FICO 8. freecreditscore.com offers a FICO 8 based on Experian.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to see a thread here that has a very user-friendly post at the top, a post that enables any reader to quickly find out easy sources of free FICO scores and reports (including possibly ultra-low cost options like the $1 trial at CCT).  The thread would be owned by a contributor here on the forum who would willing to periodically update that first post: adding, changing, deleting info as appropriate.

Do we have anything like that in place now?  I'd be glad to help put something like that together, though I might not be the best owner. 

Thoughts, anyone?

[Anonymous]

CGID, I think that's a great idea and also think there should be several sticky threads added that address the top posted thread topics on the forum.  I think if we went ahead and came up with a list of the most common thread topics it could really help a lot of people and save a bunch of duplicate threads from being made.  For example:

1 - Paying off your only installment loan will DROP your FICO scores

2 - Paying off all your credit cards [all reporting zero balances] will DROP your FICO scores

3 - Monitoring Alerts are often not related to a score change

4 - Score simulators are not accurate and can't be expected to give solid predictions since they use very limited data

5 - CK, CS, WH, CO, etc. do not provide you with FICO scores (they are VS 3.0)

6 - Closing credit cards does not adversely impact AAoA

Things like that.  Those are just some quick ones that came to mind, but I'm sure there are TONS more.  Each one of these topics could be explained in a short 4-6 sentence paragraph such that in 30-60 seconds anyone could read up on and learn 90% of what they need to know about it.

What do you think?

[sarge12]

I've seen a chart on these forums that says which cards provide which scores. I will say that if you have discover it is fico TU 08, but the site that discover gives out free scores to anyone, even without a card is fico EX 08.So 2 of the three CRA's fico 08 scores can be obtained from discover. I do not know anywhere that provides EQ fico 08 for free. Citi is fico EQ bankcard 08, Amex BCE provides EX fico 08, Barclaycard is only identified as fico TU...no version indicated but I believe it is 08. I am stating these from memory but I'm pretty sure it is right.

[DollyLama]

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@Anonymous wrote:

CGID, I think that's a great idea and also think there should be several sticky threads added that address the top posted thread topics on the forum.  I think if we went ahead and came up with a list of the most common thread topics it could really help a lot of people and save a bunch of duplicate threads from being made.  For example:

1 - Paying off your only installment loan will DROP your FICO scores

2 - Paying off all your credit cards [all reporting zero balances] will DROP your FICO scores

3 - Monitoring Alerts are often not related to a score change

4 - Score simulators are not accurate and can't be expected to give solid predictions since they use very limited data

5 - CK, CS, WH, CO, etc. do not provide you with FICO scores (they are VS 3.0)

6 - Closing credit cards does not adversely impact AAoA

Things like that.  Those are just some quick ones that came to mind, but I'm sure there are TONS more.  Each one of these topics could be explained in a short 4-6 sentence paragraph such that in 30-60 seconds anyone could read up on and learn 90% of what they need to know about it.

What do you think?

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Excellent Idea!