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Pulled all three of my scores because I was looking at getting a mortgage (and now looking at new CCs instead, due to some friendly advice from people with decades of experience on me). Seemed odd that I have two scores at 754, and one at 763 (TU), so I took a look at the credit reports to find any discrepancies between them. My Equifax report has a "duplicate" account on it for a student loan taken out some time ago, all instances are reporting paid as agreed upon/not reported (0$ balance).
Why the discrepancies, given the identical credit reports? Even factoring in the duplicated account, you would think the Equifax account would be the odd ball out, but it's the TU account that sits higher. Looking at paying off my debt over the next 2 months, and the scores jump (on the calculator) to 789/789/798, so the 9 point difference remains.
@Anonymous wrote:Pulled all three of my scores because I was looking at getting a mortgage (and now looking at new CCs instead, due to some friendly advice from people with decades of experience on me). Seemed odd that I have two scores at 754, and one at 763 (TU), so I took a look at the credit reports to find any discrepancies between them. My Equifax report has a "duplicate" account on it for a student loan taken out some time ago, all instances are reporting paid as agreed upon/not reported (0$ balance).
Why the discrepancies, given the identical credit reports? Even factoring in the duplicated account, you would think the Equifax account would be the odd ball out, but it's the TU account that sits higher. Looking at paying off my debt over the next 2 months, and the scores jump (on the calculator) to 789/789/798, so the 9 point difference remains.
What debt are you paying off? Remember to keep one credit card reporting a small balance. Also, the FICO score here are FICO 08; not the scores used by mortgage lenders. How soon are you looking at getting a mortgage.
To get your mortgage score, you can get it for free by joining DCU (but joining requires a hard pull) or you can pay $19.95 to Equifax for their score power score. Make sure you get the right one, because the other ones sold by EQ isn't your FICO. But in your situation, I would wait until I'm closer to buying.
When you used the simulator, did you play with the individual areas to see what happened? Even though the simulator showed my best option was to pay my bills for 24 mos, It also showed that paying $500 on my student loan would give me a 5 pt pop and paying $5415 would give me a 10 pt pop.
Right now, I don't have any intentions to get a mortgage. Or at least, not for about 5-6 years, once I go through college and find a job and settle down. My only inbound pulls will be for an AmEx BCP (looked at the Everyday, I don't travel enough [re: at all] to consider it the better choice) and a Chase Ink Cash Business card.
I looked at the calculators, there is actually no difference in paying off my debts 100% (currently have 5,415$ reported in revolving, it's actually 3,500$, and will be 0$ by the time I return from deployment) and paying them off over 24 months. They are the only sources of debt I currently have, but don't worry, I'll be putting a little bit back on the cards when I get back. Being within 11 points of 800 in all three scores seems pretty good to me, for a 25y/o with nothing but credit cards, student loans, and a single signature loan on record.
But back to the main point: any idea why the TU score sits 9 points over the other two?
@Anonymous wrote:Right now, I don't have any intentions to get a mortgage. Or at least, not for about 5-6 years, once I go through college and find a job and settle down. My only inbound pulls will be for an AmEx BCP (looked at the Everyday, I don't travel enough [re: at all] to consider it the better choice) and a Chase Ink Cash Business card.
I looked at the calculators, there is actually no difference in paying off my debts 100% (currently have 5,415$ reported in revolving, it's actually 3,500$, and will be 0$ by the time I return from deployment) and paying them off over 24 months. They are the only sources of debt I currently have, but don't worry, I'll be putting a little bit back on the cards when I get back. Being within 11 points of 800 in all three scores seems pretty good to me, for a 25y/o with nothing but credit cards, student loans, and a single signature loan on record.
But back to the main point: any idea why the TU score sits 9 points over the other two?
You have great scores. You only need a mid score of 740 for most mortgage lenders and 760 for the most conservative lenders. As far as the simulators go, remember they are simulators. People have experimented with real life accounts on the forum and have found various bench marks.
What is your utilization rate? FICO calculates your overall rate and your individual card rate. Thus, it's best to make sure no individual card is above 25% and then pay off individual cards. It's beneficial to keep your cards below 9% if you can manage it.
As far as having a card report a balance, you can PIF and still have a small balance report by paying after the card reports to the CBA. For example: my Amex due date is 9-4, but it reports to the CBA on the 9-10. Thus, I must PIF by 9-4 & not charge anything until after the 11th or pay all new charges by the 9th if I want it to report a 0 balance. Or as some people who PIF by due date learn, you still carry a balance even though you aren't paying interest.